People v. Bartowsheski

661 P.2d 235
CourtSupreme Court of Colorado
DecidedApril 18, 1983
Docket81SA556
StatusPublished
Cited by161 cases

This text of 661 P.2d 235 (People v. Bartowsheski) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Colorado primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Bartowsheski, 661 P.2d 235 (Colo. 1983).

Opinion

QUINN, Justice.

The defendant, Michael J. Bartowsheski, appeals from judgments entered in the Arapahoe County District Court on guilty verdicts to the charges of first degree múr-der after deliberation, first degree felony murder, and robbery, all of which involved a single victim. 1 Bartowsheski’s claims of error relate to the trial court’s refusal to grant a second change of venue due to allegedly prejudicial publicity, the claimed insufficiency of evidence for the crimes charged, the trial court’s failure to instruct on voluntary manslaughter, and the entry of judgments of conviction on all three charges. Although we conclude that the defendant was properly convicted of murder in the first degree, we hold that it was inappropriate for the trial court to enter separate judgments of conviction on the three separate verdicts. We accordingly vacate the judgments of conviction and remand the case for the entry of appropriate judgments and for resentencing.

I.

The defendant was originally charged in separate counts with first degree murder after deliberation, 2 felony murder in the course of robbery, 3 and robbery. 4 The charges arose out of the death of Michelle Talbott, an eight year old child, on December 16, 1978, in her home in Elbert County, Colorado. The brutality of the killing and the victim’s age generated extensive publicity about the homicide. The Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post, the two major Denver newspapers, published approximately fifteen articles about the crime prior to the defendant’s trial. Several of'these articles were published in December of 1978, when the child was killed, and the others were published in June and July of 1979. Jury selection had begun in the Elbert County District Court on June 26, 1979. The defendant made several requests for a change of venue due to pretrial publicity. On the fourth day of jury selection, after the interrogation of ninety-seven prospective jurors had produced only five persons who could potentially serve on the jury, the motion was granted and venue transferred to neighboring Arapahoe County. On July 9, 1979, jury selection again began. Over a period of six days *238 ninety-eight potential jurors were examined. During the voir dire the defendant again made repeated requests for a change of venue. The trial judge denied these requests, but expressly noted that any doubt about whether a juror should be excused would be resolved in favor of the defendant. 5 Of the ninety-eight potential jurors, approximately twenty-eight were excused for cause on the basis of a preconceived opinion due to pretrial publicity, while at least one-fourth of the panel could not recall ever having read or heard about the case. The defendant did not challenge for cause any of the fourteen jurors actually selected to serve, each of whom unequivocally professed an ability to be impartial. 6 Of these jurors only three remembered details of the case, and the extent of their knowledge was limited to basic facts.

On July 17,1979, the evidentiary phase of the trial commenced. The prosecution’s evidence was circumstantial and established the following facts. In November of 1978 the defendant was hitchiking in Nevada and was given a ride by a young man named Boyd Tarwater who, like the defendant, had no specific destination. A friendship developed between the two men, and Tarwater agreed to accompany the defendant to Colorado, where Bartowsheski knew of possible employment prospects through a man who owed him money. The man that the defendant had in mind was Richard Talbott, who with his wife Nancy and their four children lived in a home in Kiowa, Colorado. When the defendant and Tarwa-ter arrived in Kiowa in late November, Talbott did secure employment for them at his landscaping business and also permitted them to share a basement room in the Tal-bott home with their twelve year old son.

On the evening of Friday, December 15, 1978, the defendant and Tarwater decided to spend the evening visiting several bars. They left the Talbott home just as Richard Talbott was arriving. They asked him to join them and he refused. A short discussion followed between Talbott and the defendant concerning the money which each believed to be owing from the other. After Talbott suggested that they discuss the matter on the following morning, the defendant and Tarwater drove off.

The defendant and Tarwater spent the evening at several bars, where they played pool and drank beer. In the course of the evening they visited the Stagecoach Inn in Franktown, Colorado, where they experienced difficulties in starting Tarwater’s pickup truck and were forced to secure the assistance of another bar patron who was able to “jump start” the vehicle. They eventually headed back to the Talbott home and decided on their way to leave Colorado in favor of a visit to Tarwater’s relatives in Kansas. They also decided, in order to compensate for the money Talbott allegedly owed the defendant, to steal several guns owned by Talbott. They accordingly stopped at the Talbott home.

According to Tarwater, who testified as a prosecution witness, he remained in the truck to keep it running while the defendant went into the Talbott home to recover their possessions and the guns. When the *239 defendant failed to return in five or ten minutes, Tarwater fell asleep. He was awakened by the defendant who was sitting on the passenger’s seat wrapped in a blanket and tapping him on the arm. The defendant told him that they had to leave and they proceeded to drive towards Kansas.

Nancy Talbott awoke about 4:00 a.m. on December 16th. On her way to the bathroom she noticed that the upstairs closet door was open and that her husband’s guns, usually kept in the closet, were missing. She descended to the basement, where she saw her son but did not see either the defendant or Tarwater. Returning to the living room, she noticed blood on a pillow on the couch where eight year old Michelle Talbott had been sleeping. Upon investigating more closely she discovered that Michelle had been subjected to a brutal attack and had bled profusely from several wounds. Mrs. Talbott awoke her husband and, after discovering that their telephone lines had been cut, drove to the sheriff’s nearby house. The ensuing investigation by law enforcement officers revealed indications of blood on the doorknob to the upstairs closet, on a nearby piece of paper and wall plaque, and on the upstairs telephone. The telephone lines, which had been cut on both the upstairs and downstairs telephones, had been positioned in such a manner as to conceal the cutting. A number of items were missing from the house, including three guns from the upstairs closet, $283 in cash from the upstairs bathroom, two piggy banks, a penny jar and a green rug from the kitchen, a quilt and a blanket from the basement, and a single boot which apparently had been on the steps leading upstairs.

About 4:30 a.m. on the same day the defendant and Tarwater pulled their pickup truck into a Husky truckstop in Limón, Colorado, hoping to replace a tire which had blown out.

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Bluebook (online)
661 P.2d 235, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-bartowsheski-colo-1983.