A man serving a life sentence for an Aurora robbery and murder had his convictions reversed and will have a new trial because evidence admitted at trial suggested that it was in his character to commit such crimes. 

The inference that “he intentionally robs people at gunpoint to steal drugs from them — and acted in conformity with his bad character in this case” was impermissible, wrote Judge David Furman for the three-member Colorado Court of Appeals panel on Thursday.

According to court documents, Zakaria Hussein Ali and four other men traveled from Minnesota to Denver in October 2012. They reportedly drove to the Aurora townhouse of a marijuana grower whom two of them had met previously. After the grower, Carlos Muse, told them he had no marijuana for them, one member of the group, Feisal Hassan, gave the order to rob Muse. 

Hassan allegedly told Muse, “you don’t want to die for this,” and Ali shot Muse in the leg. Ali then ordered another group member to bind Muse’s hands and feet. The group robbed the victim of his wallet, phone and several cannabis plants, and drove to Minnesota, according to documents.

Muse subsequently bled to death. Ali received a lifetime prison sentence after a jury found him guilty of the murder and robbery.

Prosecutors for the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office had successfully asked the court to admit as evidence the fact that in December 2012, Ali was part of a planned robbery of a Minnesota drug dealer. The booking photograph that Minnesota police took of Ali matched witness descriptions of him in Colorado.

Elaborating further, prosecutors said they “have no forensic evidence tying [Ali] to the crime, no DNA, no fingerprints.” Because the two witnesses who could identify Ali were part of the Aurora robbery and had reached deals to testify, jurors might not trust them. As such, the evidence from the Minnesota robbery was “vital” to establish Ali’s motive and identity.

Ali’s attorney countered that prosecutors were merely trying to illustrate “Ali is some sort of criminal” and “he probably did this because this is the kind of thing he does.”

In 1990, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in a similar murder case where the question was whether it was permissible to admit evidence that the defendant previously pulled a gun on a roommate.

The court devised a “Spoto test,” named after the defendant, to guide courts in admitting evidence. The judge must decide whether the potential evidence relates to relevant facts, is logical to proving the case, does not simply lead to an inference of bad character, and whether it is more probative than prejudicial.

Using the Spoto test, Arapahoe County District Court Judge Natalie T. Chase permitted the evidence of the Minnesota robbery at Ali’s trial.

“First, there was a plan to rob the victim in this case and the other case. Second, there were 4 people involved in both cases. Third, in both cases the plan involved robbing drug dealers,” she said in explaining why the evidence did more than illustrate Ali’s susceptibility to this type of crime. “An effort to rob another victim who is a drug dealer in the same manner is supportive of the requisite culpable mental state(s) required of the charges in the underlying case.”

At trial, the evidence also included testimony of a confidential informant to the Minnesota robbery, who spoke to the involvement of a Somali man with dreadlocks named “Zak.” When shown a picture of Ali, the informant positively identified him as “Zak.”

The Court of Appeals panel, in reviewing Ali’s appeal, saw two types of evidence presented about the planned Minnesota robbery: information about Ali’s appearance and details of the crime itself. The judges agreed that evidence of Ali’s hairstyle was permissible because it was relevant to his identity and did not speak to his character.

For the robbery, Furman wrote that the information was relevant and logical, in that it enabled Ali’s alleged co-conspirators in Muse’s murder to identify him as a participant in the crime. Ali’s defense argued that he was not present in the state when the murder happened. 

However, the evidence still created an impermissible inference about his character.

“Ali’s involvement in a similar robbery with a similar victim, two months after the charged offenses, showed his identity in this case only if the jury inferred from this evidence that Ali has a tendency to commit this type of crime,” Furman explained.

Going further, the panel also decided the probative value of the evidence was “very low.” It failed to address Ali’s motive and intent but rather was “a high risk that the jury would convict Ali for his apparent criminal character.”

The information communicated to jurors that “Ali tried to rob a drug dealer at gunpoint in December 2012, so he probably did the same thing in this case,” Furman wrote. 

The panel ultimately did not have a “fair assurance” that the jury refrained from convicting Ali on his character based on the Minnesota evidence. Furman added it was “a stretch” to label the Minnesota and Colorado robberies as nearly identical, observing that the similarities prosecutors pointed to were common to many robberies. 

The 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the decision.

The case is People v. Ali.