A Denver judge incorrectly blocked a key witness from testifying at a man’s trial, prompting Colorado’s second-highest court to overturn the defendant’s convictions and 64-year prison sentence last week.

Jurors convicted Amos Rogers in 2020 of assaulting a police officer, drug possession and carrying a prohibited large-capacity gun magazine, among other offenses. Rogers did not dispute that he pointed a semiautomatic pistol at an officer, but he defended himself at trial by claiming he was involuntarily intoxicated.

Specifically, Amos’ friend allegedly put LSD into his drink, which caused him to hallucinate.

However, Amos’ jurors never got a chance to hear from the friend, as then-District Court Judge Edward D. Bronfin barred the witness from taking the stand. The man intended to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to questioning, as drugging Amos may have amounted to a crime itself.

But a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals deemed Bronfin’s decision a mistake, and an obvious one at the time. Amos’ trial took place four years after his arrest – beyond the statute of limitations for his friend’s potential crime. Therefore, there was no reason to invoke the Fifth Amendment and no reason to block the testimony.

“Moreover, no one but (the friend) could have identified the amount of LSD Rogers allegedly ingested – a detail that would have been crucial to determining whether Rogers was so incapacitated by LSD that he could not be criminally culpable for his actions,” wrote Judge Matthew D. Grove in the panel’s Oct. 5 opinion.

Case: People v. Rogers

Decided: October 5, 2023

Jurisdiction: Denver

Ruling: 3-0

Judges: Matthew D. Grove (author)

Anthony J. Navarro

Alex J. Martinez

In April 2016, Rogers and his friend went to a house where some people were partying. At one point, someone brought him a drink. After departing with a woman, Rogers began to hallucinate. The woman left Rogers with a backpack with a gun inside and, for reasons he could not recall, he wound up near South Broadway in Denver the next day.

An officer responded to a 911 call of suspicious behavior, only to see Rogers point a semiautomatic pistol at him and appear to pull the trigger. The gun did not fire and Rogers eventually surrendered. Police recovered two guns and methamphetamine from Rogers.

Rogers did not stand trial until four years later. He testified that his friend had dropped acid in his drink and at the time Rogers encountered the officer, he believed a “spaceship” was chasing him and “lizard people” were saying they would eat him.

The defense attempted to call Rogers’ friend to testify. The friend allegedly had admitted to a defense investigator that he did put LSD in Rogers’ drink.

Concerned about the friend’s Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, the prosecution asked Bronfin to appoint an attorney to advise him. Outside the jury’s presence, the friend then declined to answer questions about giving Rogers LSD.

Because the friend could face criminal charges and was exercising his constitutional right not to testify, Bronfin ruled the man need not take the witness stand at all.

On appeal, Rogers argued there was no need to shield the friend from testifying, as he could not possibly face charges due to the statute of limitations. The prosecution countered that even if a mistake happened, no one objected at the time so the problem was not obvious.

The appellate panel concluded the mistake was both obvious and likely affected the jury’s verdict.

“It was undisputed that Rogers was heavily intoxicated when he was arrested, but,” wrote Grove, “the source of that intoxication was the linchpin of his defense.”

Rogers was unable to question the friend about his admission to drugging Rogers’ drink. Consequently, the jury never heard the “powerful evidence” supporting Rogers’ claim of involuntary intoxication, Grove concluded.

The panel reversed the convictions.

The case is People v. Rogers.