Colorado v. Rigsby
Annotate this CaseDerek Rigsby was charged with three counts of second degree assault for smashing a glass into someone’s face during a bar fight. The three charges represented alternative methods of committing the same crime. The jury found Rigsby guilty as charged on the first two counts: (1) second degree assault (acting with intent to cause bodily injury and causing serious bodily injury); and (2) second degree assault (acting recklessly and causing serious bodily injury with a deadly weapon). On the third count, second degree assault (acting with intent to cause bodily injury and causing bodily injury with a deadly weapon), the jury returned a guilty verdict on the lesser included offense of third degree assault (acting with criminal negligence and causing bodily injury with a deadly weapon), a misdemeanor; in so doing, the jury effectively acquitted Rigsby of the charged offense on that count. Concluding that the guilty verdicts for second degree assault, and the guilty verdict for third degree assault, were mutually exclusive, a division of the Colorado court of appeals reversed the judgment of conviction and remanded for a new trial. On appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court, the state conceded the judgment of conviction entered by the trial court was defective, but argued the error was one of multiplicity, not mutually exclusive verdicts, and that it should have been corrected by merging the three guilty verdicts. To this, the Supreme Court agreed. The matter was remanded to the court of appeals with instructions to return the case to the trial court to merge all of the convictions into a single conviction for second degree assault and to leave in place only one sentence (one of the two concurrent five-year prison sentences imposed).
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