People v. O'Neill

26 Citing cases

  1. People v. Rodriguez

    914 P.2d 230 (Colo. 1996)   Cited 272 times
    Holding that "to obtain relief on a due process claim arising from an incomplete record, a [criminal] defendant must always demonstrate specific prejudice resulting from the state of that record"

    Defense counsel does not have a constitutional right to voir dire, so long as the court's "examination allowed counsel to determine whether any potential jurors possessed any beliefs that would bias them such as to prevent [the defendant] from receiving a fair trial." People v. O'Neill, 803 P.2d 164, 169 (Colo. 1990). Likewise, defense counsel does not have a constitutional or statutory right to unlimited voir dire.

  2. People v. District Court

    834 P.2d 181 (Colo. 1992)   Cited 31 times
    Holding that where provisions of death penalty statute were declared unconstitutional after murder committed, as long as at the time of the alleged offense defendant had "fair warning" that first degree murder conviction could result in death penalty, application of death penalty statute did not violate ex post facto clause

    . Subsequently, in People v. O'Neill, 803 P.2d 164, 178-79 (Colo. 1990), we upheld defendant's argument that the jury was not under any burden of persuasion in its fourth step of deliberations in violation of Tenneson. In a footnote, we noted that the fourth step had been eliminated by the 1988 amendment but that the pre-1988 statute was in effect at the time of the offense in O'Neill.

  3. People v. White

    870 P.2d 424 (Colo. 1994)   Cited 24 times
    Holding that to construe the aggravator that the defendant committed the offense in an especially heinous, cruel, or depraved manner to encompass defendant's action that occurred a day after the acts that caused the death of another runs contrary to the statutory scheme "which calibrates punishment based on events or circumstances arising from the defendant's actions that cause the death of another person"

    Based on the record, we conclude that the district court would nonetheless have concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that death was the appropriate sentence if it had not considered the especially heinous statutory aggravator. See People v. O'Neill, 803 P.2d 164, 178 (Colo. 1990) (holding that a capital sentencer must conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that death is the appropriate punishment at the fourth step). We reach our conclusion in the present case beyond a reasonable doubt.

  4. People v. Lefebre

    5 P.3d 295 (Colo. 2000)   Cited 68 times
    Holding that defendant “suffered a Fourteenth Amendment due process violation” where the court denied him “parity with the prosecution in the exercise of peremptory challenges”

    Voir dire, however, is not itself a constitutional right. See People v. O'Neill, 803 P.2d 164, 169 (Colo. 1990). Rather, it is a tool that the parties use for the purpose of revealing and addressing bias in potential jurors.

  5. People v. Glover

    893 P.2d 1311 (Colo. 1995)   Cited 55 times
    In Glover, 893 P.2d at 1314–15, the defendant was convicted on two counts of first degree murder, even though he only committed one murder.

    A court may not enter judgments of conviction for felony murder and murder after deliberation for the murder of a single victim. See, e.g., People v. O'Neill, 803 P.2d 164, 173 (Colo. 1990); People v. Saathoff, 790 P.2d 804, 807 (Colo. 1990); People v. Bartowsheski, 661 P.2d 235, 246 (Colo.

  6. Bouwkamp v. State

    833 P.2d 486 (Wyo. 1992)   Cited 61 times
    Finding that due process considerations entitle criminal defendants to affirmatively stated theory of the case instructions when the instruction sufficiently informs the court of the defendant's theory, is supported by competent evidence, and the offered instruction presents a defense recognized by statute or case law

    We are here presented the unitary verdict unanimous instruction decidendi which has created unlimited litigative review with frequently differentiated results and inconclusive justifications used to affirm possible non-unanimous jury decisions. See Schad, 111 S.Ct. 2491, compared with People v. Lowe, 660 P.2d 1261 (Colo. 1983) and State v. Alford, 329 N.C. 755, 407 S.E.2d 519 (1991), followed by People v. O'Neill, 803 P.2d 164 (Colo. 1990); People v. Freeman, 668 P.2d 1371 (Colo. 1983); State v. Boots, 308 Or. 371, 780 P.2d 725 (1989); and, in particular, Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975) and In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970).

  7. People v. Henderson

    810 P.2d 1058 (Colo. 1991)   Cited 53 times
    Holding that merger did not apply because sexual assault was not a lesser included offense of second-degree kidnapping involving sexual assault

    People v. O'Neill, 803 P.2d 164 (Colo. 1990). Under Boulies, merger applies only to "a crime that is the lesser included offense of another crime for which the defendant has also been convicted in the same prosecution."

  8. Thomas v. People

    500 P.3d 1095 (Colo. 2021)   Cited 8 times
    Holding that "level 4 drug felonies qualify as neither triggering offenses nor predicate offenses for habitual criminal purposes"

    1990), overruled in part on other grounds by People v. Dunlap , 975 P.2d 723, 740 (Colo. 1999) ; People v. O'Neill , 803 P.2d 164, 173–74 (Colo. 1990) ; and People v. Glover , 893 P.2d 1311, 1315 (Colo. 1995).

  9. Dunlap v. People

    173 P.3d 1054 (Colo. 2007)   Cited 112 times
    Holding that counsel's decision to abandon the alternate suspect theory was "strategic" given the case's unexpected direction

    With regard to the prospective jurors who were eventually struck and the alternate jurors who never deliberated, therefore, he cannot appeal the trial court's denial of his challenges for cause. See, e.g., Ma v. People, 121 P.3d 205, 210 (Colo. 2005); Rodriguez V, 914 P.2d at 263; People v. O'Neill, 803 P.2d 164, 173 (Colo. 1990). The denied challenge for cause of the juror who actually deliberated, however, is a different matter.

  10. People v. Harlan

    8 P.3d 448 (Colo. 2000)   Cited 106 times
    Holding error not reversible where jury instructions as a whole kept prosecution to its proper burden of proof concerning the elements of first-degree murder

    In considering whether a trial court properly oversaw voir dire, this court has kept in mind that a key function of voir dire is to "`enable counsel to determine whether any prospective jurors are possessed of beliefs which would cause them to be biased in such a manner as to prevent the [defendant] from obtaining a fair and impartial trial.'" Rodriguez, 914 P.2d at 260 (quoting Collins, 730 P.2d at 300); see also People v. O'Neill, 803 P.2d 164, 169 (Colo. 1990). As such, an adequate voir dire is an essential part of the defendant's right to a fair trial.