People v. Garcia.

2024 COA 91. No. 19CA1629. Judges—Actual Bias—Disqualification—Waiver of Claim.

August 15, 2024

Garcia was convicted of first degree aggravated motor vehicle theft. A court of appeals division reversed his conviction because Judge Hopkins, who presided over his trial, had previously appeared in the case as Garcia’s defense counsel at one hearing at which Garcia had failed to appear. The Colorado Supreme Court reversed, finding that Garcia waived his claim that Judge Hopkins was statutorily disqualified under CRS § 16-6-201, and it remanded the matter for consideration of Garcia’s alternative arguments that CRS § 13-1-122 deprived the judge of judicial authority and that his due process right to an impartial judge was violated.

On appeal, the court of appeals first determined that the Supreme Court’s waiver analysis applied equally to Garcia’s alternative bases for challenging Judge Hopkins’s authority because these bases are also subject to waiver. The court concluded that the only argument that would not be subject to waiver is a claim that the trial judge was actually biased. Garcia offered no authority for his position that a judge’s prior service as counsel of record for a party creates actual bias against that party as a matter of law. The court decided that previous service in the same case as counsel of record for the defendant does not by itself establish that a defense attorney who became a judge was actually biased against the defendant. Here, Judge Hopkins was not Garcia’s assigned public defender, and she filed no written entry of appearance. She appeared only at a pretrial readiness conference at which Garcia did not appear. Nothing substantive occurred when Judge Hopkins briefly handled Garcia’s matter as an attorney, and the record does not suggest that she held any bias against Garcia.

The judgment of conviction was affirmed.

The full opinion is available at https://www.coloradojudicial.gov/system/files/opinions-2024-08/19CA1629-PD.pdf.