Peo v. Goin

• Court: Colorado Court of Appeals
• Decided: November 26, 2025
• Docket: 24CA0619
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

24CA0619 Peo v Goin 11-26-2025

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 24CA0619 Jefferson County District Court No. 22CR1719 Honorable Ryan P. Loewer, Judge

The People of the State of Colorado,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

Justin Lee Goin,

Defendant-Appellant.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED

Division III Opinion by JUDGE DUNN Lipinsky and Kuhn, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced November 26, 2025

Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Erin K. Grundy, First Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee

Megan A. Ring, Colorado State Public Defender, Molly E. Bramble, Deputy State Public Defender, Golden, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant ¶1 Defendant, Justin Lee Goin, appeals his convictions for third

degree assault and obstructing a peace officer. He argues that

insufficient evidence supports his judgment of conviction. Because

we disagree, we affirm.

I. Background

¶2 One summer day, two agents with the Lakewood Police

Department, James Steelman and Ryan Siert, were dispatched to

West Colfax Avenue to execute an arrest warrant for Goin. As the

agents approached him, Goin ran. Goin ignored commands to stop

running. Goin, however, fell, and the agents caught up to him. A

brief struggle ensued when the agents attempted to take Goin into

custody. Agent Steelman said that, during the struggle, Goin

struck him in the face and kneed him in the midsection. The short

encounter was captured on Agent Steelman’s bodycamera footage.

¶3 The prosecution charged Goin with second degree assault of a

peace officer and second degree assault of a peace officer while

lawfully confined or in custody. Before closing argument, the court

agreed to instruct the jury on the lesser included offenses of third

degree assault and obstructing a peace officer, as well as the lesser

nonincluded offense of resisting arrest. In closing argument,

1 defense counsel conceded that Goin was “trying to get out of

custody,” “obstructing,” and “resisting,” but she asked the jury to

reject the assault charges because she said Goin’s actions were not

violent.

¶4 The jury rejected the more serious charges and convicted Goin

of third degree assault, obstructing a peace officer, and resisting

arrest. The district court merged the resisting arrest conviction into

the third degree assault conviction and sentenced Goin to eighteen

months of probation with a suspended six-month jail sentence.1

II. Discussion

¶5 Goin contends that the evidence was insufficient to support

his convictions for third degree assault and obstructing a peace

officer.

A. Standard of Review

¶6 We review claims challenging the sufficiency of the evidence de

novo to determine whether the evidence was sufficient both in

quantity and quality to sustain the conviction. Johnson v. People,

1 It is not clear from the record why the court merged the lesser

nonincluded resisting arrest conviction into the third degree assault conviction.

2 2023 CO 7, ¶ 13. We consider whether the relevant evidence, when

viewed as a whole and in the light most favorable to the

prosecution, is “substantial and sufficient to support a conclusion

by a reasonable mind that the defendant is guilty of the charge

beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. (citation omitted).

B. Third Degree Assault

¶7 Goin says that insufficient evidence supported his third degree

assault conviction because the evidence “directly contradict[ed] a

finding that [he] acted knowingly or recklessly” or that he “caused

any injury” to Agent Steelman.2 We disagree.

¶8 The court agreed to instruct the jury on the lesser included

offense of third degree assault. As charged in this case, a person

commits third degree assault if the person “recklessly causes bodily

injury to another person.” § 18-3-204(1)(a), C.R.S. 2025. “A person

acts recklessly when he consciously disregards a substantial and

unjustifiable risk that a result will occur or that a circumstance

exists.” § 18-1-501(8), C.R.S. 2025. Bodily injury “means physical

2 As presented to the jury, the third degree assault charge did not

allege that Goin acted knowingly. We therefore do not address whether the evidence was sufficient to support a finding that Goin acted knowingly.

3 pain, illness, or any impairment of physical or mental condition.”

§ 18-1-901(3)(c), C.R.S. 2025.

¶9 Agent Steelman testified that, while he and Goin were

struggling on the ground, Goin hit him in the face and kneed him in

the midsection “as hard as he could from th[at] range.” Agent

Steelman testified that each action caused him pain. Agent Siert

testified that, after the struggle, Agent Steelman was rubbing his

face and said that Goin had punched him in the face. Along with

the agents’ testimony, the jury saw Agent Steelman’s bodycam

footage.

¶ 10 Viewing this evidence in the light most favorable to the

prosecution, we conclude it was sufficient for a reasonable jury to

find that Goin recklessly caused bodily injury to Agent Steelman.

See People v. Black, 2020 COA 136, ¶¶ 36-39 (evidence establishing

that the defendant scratched a police officer and caused him pain

was sufficient for a third degree assault conviction). Indeed, by

physically struggling with Agent Steelman, a jury could reasonably

infer that Goin consciously disregarded a substantial risk that he

would injure the agent. See People v. Grant, 174 P.3d 798, 812

(Colo. App. 2007) (stating that evidence about a defendant’s mental

4 state may be inferred from the defendant’s conduct); see also People

v. Hall, 999 P.2d 207, 220 (Colo. 2000) (noting that a fact finder

may infer the defendant’s awareness of a risk from what a

reasonable person would have understood under the

circumstances).

¶ 11 To the extent that Goin maintains that he did not hit Agent

Steelman, that the agent was injured in some other way, and that

he could not have formed the required mental state during the

short incident, it was up to the jury — not us — to weigh the

evidence and resolve any evidentiary conflicts. See People v. Perez,

2016 CO 12, ¶ 31 (“A court must not invade the province of the jury

by second-guessing its conclusion when the record supports the

jury’s findings.”). That the jury rejected Goin’s version of events

does not make the evidence insufficient to support the conviction.

C. Obstructing a Peace Officer

¶ 12 Goin argues that the evidence did not support the obstructing

a peace officer conviction because he claims that he was compliant

and “did not actually hinder police activity.” We again disagree.

¶ 13 As relevant here, a person commits the crime of obstructing a

peace officer if, by using or threatening to use violence, force,

5 physical interference, or an obstacle, he “knowingly obstructs,

impairs, or hinders the enforcement of the penal law . . . by a peace

officer, acting under color of his or her official authority.”

§ 18-8-104(1)(a), C.R.S. 2025.

¶ 14 Viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, evidence

that Goin ran from the agents, ignored commands to stop, and

physically struggled with the agents — corroborated by

contemporaneous bodycam footage — was sufficient to support a

finding that Goin obstructed a peace officer. See Dempsey v.

People, 117 P.3d 800, 811-13 (Colo. 2005) (concluding that

sufficient evidence supported an obstruction conviction when the

defendant was contacted by police, refused to provide identification,

walked away from officers, reached into his pocket in a threatening

manner, and struggled with officers as they attempted to place him

into custody).

III. Disposition

¶ 15 The judgment is affirmed.

JUDGE LIPINSKY and JUDGE KUHN concur.