Peo v. Garcia Valdivia

── Peo v. Garcia Valdivia ── Court: Colorado Court of Appeals Date: April 16, 2026 Category: General 23CA0719 Peo v Garcia Valdivia 04-16-2026 COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS Court of Appeals No. 23CA0719 Arapahoe County District Court No. 22CR972 Honorable Eric White, Judge The People of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jose Garcia Valdivia, Defendant-Appellant. JUDGMENT REVERSED AND CASE REMANDED WITH DIRECTIONS Division V Opinion by JUDGE LIPINSKY Welling and Tow, JJ., concur NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced April 16, 2026 Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Yaried A. Hailu, Assistant Attorney General Fellow, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee Megan A. Ring, Colorado State Public Defender, Sean James Lacefield, Deputy State Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant ¶1 Jose Garcia Valdivia appeals his conviction for felony menacing. (At oral argument, Garcia Valdivia’s counsel requested that we refer to his client as “Garcia.” We do so in this opinion.) We reverse and remand for a new trial. I. Background A. The Shooting ¶2 Jose Mendoza called 911 early one morning to report that he had been shot in the hand. When police officers arrived, Mendoza told them that Garcia had shot him. ¶3 Mendoza testified at trial that a fight broke out between him and Garcia at the apartment of their mutual friend Jannett Salazar. Mendoza said Garcia pointed a gun at him, and when Mendoza tried to grab it, the gun fired, striking him in the pinky finger. ¶4 Garcia was charged in Arapahoe County — the Eighteenth Judicial District — with two counts of second degree assault, one count of felony menacing, one count of first degree assault, and two crime of violence sentence enhancers. Garcia’s theory of defense was that, not only did he not shoot Mendoza, but he was never at Salazar’s apartment the day of the shooting. At the conclusion of 1  trial, the jury acquitted Garcia of all counts except felony menacing. The trial court sentenced him to probation. B. Mendoza’s and Salazar’s Testimony ¶5 Mendoza and Salazar were the only eyewitnesses who testified at trial; Garcia exercised his constitutional right not to testify. ¶6 Before cross-examining Salazar, defense counsel informed the court that Salazar had an “open and active” criminal case in the Eighteenth Judicial District, the same jurisdiction in which the trial was taking place. Defense counsel sought to ask Salazar about the pending charges against her. Defense counsel asserted that Salazar’s testimony about her open criminal matter was “relevant to [Salazar’s] credibility or bias in her testimony” because she was being prosecuted by the same district attorney’s office — the Office of the District Attorney for the Eighteenth Judicial District (the District Attorney’s Office) — that was calling her to the witness stand. Defense counsel explained, She’s being called to the stand as [the prosecution’s] witness. She has a reason or a motive to cooperate or give favorable testimony for this district attorney’s office. Even if no explicit promises have been made, she still has an incentive to try to not upset the district 2  attorney’s office when addressing her case with them. ¶7 The trial court noted it “[didn’t] appear that . . . any offers . . . [had] been made to Ms. Salazar in exchange for her testimony . . . . [I]t doesn’t appear that the People have explicitly made Ms. Salazar’s cooperation a condition of any plea or a condition of any favorable treatment” in her case. The court asked Salazar’s counsel, who was present i