Pettigrew v. Colorado
Annotate this CaseIn this case, the court of appeals affirmed petitioner William Pettigrew’s judgment of conviction for pandering of a child and tampering with a witness or victim. Pettigrew claimed that the trial court’s statements to the jury venire during voir dire lowered the prosecution’s burden of proof in violation of due process. Additionally, he contended the appellate erred in determining that a warrant to search his cell phone and the warrant’s supporting affidavit satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement. In his view, had the courts below properly redacted from the warrant all information obtained as a result of his initial unlawful arrest, the warrant would not have sufficiently described the place to be searched. The Colorado Supreme Court concluded that, although a number of the trial court’s comments during voir dire were problematic, on the facts presented here, there was no reasonable likelihood that the jury would have understood the court’s statements, in the context of the instructions as a whole and the trial record, to lower the prosecution’s burden of proof below the reasonable doubt standard. In addition, assuming without deciding that the warrant and its supporting affidavit, when properly redacted, did not satisfy the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement, the Supreme Court concluded any error in admitting at trial the evidence obtained from Pettigrew’s cell phone was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. "This evidence was cumulative of other evidence presented, and the evidence of Pettigrew’s guilt was overwhelming." Accordingly, the Supreme Court affirmed the appellate court's judgment, but for somewhat different reasons.
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