Peo v. Henry

CourtColorado Court of Appeals
DecidedJanuary 8, 2026
Docket23CA1655
StatusUnpublished

This text of Peo v. Henry (Peo v. Henry) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Colorado Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Peo v. Henry, (Colo. Ct. App. 2026).

Opinion

23CA1655 Peo v Henry 01-08-2026

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 23CA1655 City and County of Denver District Court No. 20CR5080 Honorable Kandace C. Gerdes, Judge Honorable Jennifer B. Torrington, Judge

The People of the State of Colorado,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

Adawnous Donnil Henry,

Defendant-Appellant.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED

Division VI Opinion by JUDGE GOMEZ Welling and Sullivan, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced January 8, 2026

Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Caitlin E. Grant, Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee

M. Linton Wright, Alternate Defense Counsel, Lafayette, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant ¶1 Defendant, Adawnous Donnil Henry, appeals the judgment of

conviction entered after a jury found him guilty of two counts of

distribution of controlled substances, two counts of possession of

controlled substances, illegal discharge of a firearm, and third

degree assault. He contends that the trial court reversibly erred by

(1) denying his motion to suppress evidence obtained as a result of

a warrantless search of his house; (2) accepting his waiver of his

right to counsel; and (3) admitting evidence about suspected bomb-

making materials found in a search of his house. We disagree.

Therefore, we affirm the judgment.

I. Background

¶2 Early one morning, officers responded to reports of gunshots

in a residential area. When officers arrived on the scene, they

found a woman — later identified as Raqhel Williams — hiding

behind a vehicle on the back side of the house. Officers later

observed a handgun under the vehicle she’d been hiding behind.

¶3 Officers also found a man — later identified as Henry — in the

front yard of a neighboring house with a gunshot wound and a rifle

within his reach. He was transported to the hospital and received

medical treatment for the gunshot wound and a head injury.

1 ¶4 Williams and Henry gave investigating officers conflicting

accounts as to what had led to the shooting.

¶5 Williams told officers that she’d been using Henry’s computer

when he grabbed her by the neck and started choking her. She

said that she was able to grab a knife from Henry and swing it at

him. Then, she said, she grabbed a gun that had fallen out of his

waistband and shot at him multiple times before fleeing the house.

¶6 Henry told officers that he lived in the house and that he’d

invited Williams over, and they’d had consensual sex, after which

he fell asleep and woke up to her attempting to rob him. According

to Henry, Williams had a gun in her hand, and when he tried to

grab it, she shot him in the abdomen. Henry said he grabbed a

rifle, began shooting back, and then fled to the neighbor’s front yard

and shot toward their house to prompt them to call the police.

¶7 After their initial interviews with Henry and Williams, officers

conducted a warrantless sweep of the house. They reported that

during that initial search, they didn’t find anyone else in the house

but observed narcotics and other items of interest in plain view.

Based on these observations, they obtained a search warrant.

2 Upon executing the warrant, they seized various controlled

substances and other evidence from the house.

¶8 Henry was charged with several counts relating to the shooting

and the items found in the house. Neither Williams nor Henry

testified at trial, but the jury heard testimony about and saw video

recordings of their interviews with officers. After the trial, the jury

found Henry guilty of two counts of distribution of controlled

substances (cocaine and psilocyn), two counts of possession of a

controlled substance (methamphetamine and

methylenedioxymethamphetamine), one count of illegal discharge of

a firearm, and one count of third degree assault.

¶9 This appeal followed.

II. Suppression Ruling

¶ 10 Henry contends that the trial court erred by denying his

motion to suppress evidence obtained as a result of the warrantless

search of the house. Specifically, he claims that the search wasn’t

justified by exigent circumstances and exceeded the scope of any

such circumstances. He also claims that the evidence presented at

trial undermined the factual findings the court had made after the

suppression hearing and, thus, that the court plainly erred by not

3 revisiting its earlier decision and excluding the challenged evidence

at trial. We disagree with both contentions.

A. Additional Facts

¶ 11 Based on the initial warrantless search of the house, officers

obtained a search warrant. The affidavit in support of the warrant

stated that, during that initial search, officers “observed narcotics,

paraphernalia, shell casings and ammunition in plain view.”

¶ 12 Henry filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized with the

search warrant based on the invalidity of the initial warrantless

search. After a hearing, the trial court denied the motion,

concluding that the warrantless search was justified by the exigent

circumstances exception to the warrant requirement and was

reasonable in scope. The court explained,

[T]here was clearly a colorable claim of emergency threatening the life or safety of another which justified a warrantless entry into the home or other premises . . . .

So the circumstances in which they found themselves were that . . . they had a call of a shooting. I have the first victim who is injured; one officer was speaking to her; Mr. Henry was lying on the ground with an obvious wound and said that somebody had shot him, and then identified the place where — I don’t mean on his physical person, but that the shooting

4 had occurred in his home. And the police had sufficient justification at that point to enter the home . . . .

....

[Officers] needed to determine if there was anybody else who could have been injured who was in the home or if the shooter was still on the premises.

¶ 13 The court further concluded that “the search that [officers]

conducted was reasonably related to the exigencies they sought to

address,” and “[t]he things that they found in this home were in

plain view.”

¶ 14 At trial, the evidence showed that drugs were found in the

house in a cooler in a trapdoor area, in a duffle bag inside a closet,

and in a pocket in William’s bag.

B. Applicable Legal Standards

¶ 15 Our review of a trial court’s suppression order presents a

mixed question of law and fact. People v. Thompson, 2021 CO 15,

¶ 15. We defer to the court’s factual findings, such as findings of

historical facts underlying a search, if those findings are supported

by the record. See id. But we assess de novo the legal significance

of those facts, such as whether a search was constitutional. See

People v. Berdahl, 2019 CO 29, ¶ 18.

5 ¶ 16 The United States and the Colorado Constitutions both protect

an individual’s right against unreasonable searches and seizures.

See U.S. Const. amend. IV; Colo. Const. art. II, § 7; People v. Oates,

698 P.2d 811, 814 (Colo. 1985). A search of a home without a

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Peo v. Henry, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/peo-v-henry-coloctapp-2026.