Howard-Walker v. People

JUSTICE HOOD delivered the Opinion of the Court. ¶1 Two men, one carrying what seemed to be a gun, broke into an unoccupied Colorado Springs home and stole roughly $8,000 in cash and other valuables from a safe in a bedroom closet. As it happens, the homeowner had a motion-activated camera in his alarm clock. The camera captured the burglary, albeit on grainy footage. ¶2 The homeowner, who owned a video-editing business, enhanced that footage and then shared it with local television news stations, along with an offer of a reward for the "conviction" of the burglars. When the video aired on the news, someone identified the man carrying the gun in the video as the defendant, Kyree Howard-Walker. ¶3 Howard-Walker was ultimately convicted of first degree burglary and conspiracy to commit first degree burglary, after a two-day trial. On appeal, he argued that his relatively brief trial was riddled with errors that, at the very least, collectively warranted reversal. ¶4 A division of the court of appeals sifted through the many errors alleged and eventually identified eight, but also concluded that those errors did not warrant reversal individually or collectively.

See People v. Howard-Walker , 2017 COA 81M, ¶ 2, 446 P.3d 843 . In reaching this conclusion, the division adopted a new approach to cumulative error review.

Id. at ¶¶ 118-21. Instead of relying only on our precedent in Oaks v. People , 150 Colo. 64 , 371 P.2d 443 (1962), the division sought more guideposts and, in so doing, crafted a two-step, multi-factor test based on precedent from federal circuit courts.