Another man convicted in Adams County will receive a new trial because the judge described reasonable doubt to jurors using an analogy very similar to one the Colorado Supreme Court recently deemed problematic.

The Court of Appeals’ reversal of Darren Ross Hoffman’s attempted murder convictions is the second time in recent weeks that an Adams County judge’s improper description of reasonable doubt ran afoul of the Supreme Court’s precedent. On Feb. 17, the appellate court similarly granted a new trial in a murder case after District Court Judge Sharon D. Holbrook likened reasonable doubt to a significant crack in a house while attempting to elaborate on the legal definition for the jury.

Now, a three-judge appellate panel has found former District Court Judge Tomee Crespin made a reversible error in Hoffman’s trial when she described cracks in the drywall of a home to jurors and told them, “That’s reasonable doubt.”

After the Court of Appeals had warned trial judges in various decisions over two decades to steer clear of using analogies to everyday scenarios when describing reasonable doubt to jurors, the Supreme Court stepped in and reversed a conviction in January because the judge, also from Adams County, had improperly lowered the burden of proof for the prosecution with his analogy. 

In that case, Tibbels v. People, the judge had asked jurors whether they would buy an otherwise “perfect” home that had a structurally-significant crack in the foundation. When a juror responded in the negative, the judge agreed that there was “a reason” not to proceed with the purchase. 

The Supreme Court pointed out that it is the responsibility of the government to prove criminal allegations beyond a reasonable doubt, and defendants do not have to present any reason – a structurally-significant crack, in the analogy’s terms – to convince a jury to acquit. The court added that such illustrations, even at the very beginning of a trial, may influence how jurors understand reasonable doubt during deliberations.

“In our view, the trial court’s focus on this nonlegal, real-world example made the illustration highly significant and ensured that the jury would give it undue weight,” Justice Richard L. Gabriel explained in the court’s Jan. 10 opinion.

A Colorado Politics analysis of cases that challenged judges’ reasonable doubt illustrations found Adams County was the source of the vast majority of appeals – around 80% of cases between 2001 and last fall.

In Hoffman’s case, a jury convicted him in 2018 after he shot at police officers who were responding to a 911 call. Crespin, the trial judge, read the legal definition of reasonable doubt to potential jurors during jury selection. The concept is defined as a doubt that causes people “to hesitate to act in matters of importance to themselves.”

However, Crespin then raised the example of someone purchasing a “dream house” that had a crack in the drywall, among other defects.

“Who’s going to buy the home? We’re pausing, right? That’s reasonable doubt,” she told the jury.

A three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals applied the Supreme Court’s decision in Tibbels and found it was likely that Crespin’s example, as the jury understood it, allowed for Hoffman to be convicted on a standard lower than beyond a reasonable doubt.

“(W)e conclude that the trial court’s description of finding the dream house, noticing the drywall crack, noticing pieces of drywall below the crack and then discovering problems with a door in the same area arguably suggested to the jury that they should start with a presumption of Hoffman’s guilt and look for evidence of reasonable doubt to acquit him as the evidence unfolded,” wrote Judge Rebecca R. Freyre in the March 10 opinion. “Such a suggestion violates the presumption of innocence and misplaces the burden of proof on the defendant.”

The case is People v. Hoffman.