Caswell v. Colorado
Annotate this CasePursuant to a request from Lakewood Animal Control, a deputy with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office (“LCSO”), conducted a welfare check on the animals at Constance Caswell’s residential property in Limon, Colorado, on March 15, 2016. Approximately two weeks later, LCSO deputies executed a search warrant at Caswell’s property. Based on the deputies’ search, the State filed a complaint charging Caswell with forty-three class 6 felony counts of cruelty to animals. Cruelty to animals was generally a class 1 misdemeanor, § 18-9-202(2)(a), but pursuant to subsection (2)(b)(I) of the statute, it was a class 6 felony if the defendant had a prior conviction for that crime. Each of the counts brought against Caswell identified her prior cruelty-to-animals conviction as a fact that elevated the classification of the charge from a misdemeanor to a felony and enhanced the applicable sentence. Before trial, defense counsel moved for bifurcation to prevent the jury from hearing about his client’s prior conviction for cruelty to animals. The trial court denied the motion as moot, however, ruling that the fact of a prior conviction was a sentence enhancer, not an element of the crime, which meant that it didn’t have to be proved to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury found Caswell guilty of all forty-three counts. During the sentencing hearing, Caswell conceded that she had previously been convicted of cruelty to animals. The trial court accordingly entered forty-three class 6 felony convictions. It then sentenced Caswell to eight years of probation, forty-three days in jail, and forty-seven days of in-home detention. The Colorado Supreme Court held that where, as was here, a cruelty-to-animals (second or subsequent offense) case (1) includes notice in the charging document of the prior conviction for cruelty to animals and (2) is treated as a felony throughout the proceedings—including in terms of its prosecution in district court (not county court), the right to a preliminary hearing (if eligible), the number of peremptory challenges, and the number of jurors - the Sixth Amendment doesn’t require that the misdemeanor - felony transforming fact in subsection (2)(b)(I) be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. "In sum, there was no error, much less plain error, here. Caswell’s right to a jury trial under the Colorado Constitution was not violated."
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