Peo v. Sugg

── Peo v. Sugg ── Court: Colorado Court of Appeals Date: May 14, 2026 Category: General 23CA0333 Peo v Sugg 05-14-2026 COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS Court of Appeals No. 23CA0333 Arapahoe County District Court No. 20CR164 Honorable Eric White, Judge The People of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Gregory Shad Sugg, Defendant-Appellant. JUDGMENT AFFIRMED Division I Opinion by JUDGE MEIRINK J. Jones and Lum, JJ., concur NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced May 14, 2026 Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Trina K. Kissel, Senior Assistant Attorney General and Assistant Solicitor General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee Megan A. Ring, Colorado State Public Defender, Jeffrey A. Wermer, Deputy State Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant ¶1 Defendant, Gregory Shad Sugg, appeals the trial court’s judgment of conviction entered on a jury verdict finding him guilty of child abuse (serious bodily injury). We affirm. I. Background ¶2 Sugg and his fiancee, L.D., lived together with their infant son, J.D. A few months after J.D.’s birth, L.D. returned to work after taking maternity leave, and Sugg became J.D.’s primary caretaker. ¶3 In January 2020, when J.D. was about five months old, Sugg and L.D. took him to the pediatrician because he was vomiting and crying like he was in pain. The pediatrician sent them to the hospital for a stomach ultrasound. J.D.’s stomach was fine, but doctors noticed that the soft spot on his head was bulging, so they conducted an MRI, which revealed that J.D. had hemorrhaging in his brain. Doctors also conducted a CT scan, which revealed that J.D. had numerous retinal hemorrhages in both eyes. ¶4 Doctors conducted additional tests and considered and rejected bleeding disorders, cancer, sepsis, and metabolic genetic disorders as the cause of the bleeding. They also rejected the theory that a short fall L.D. had while holding J.D. a few weeks prior was the cause of the bleeding because the type of brain injury 1  J.D. had was the result of severe trauma — like from “a motor vehicle accident” or “falling out of a window.” J.D.’s treating physicians ultimately diagnosed J.D. with abusive head trauma (AHT).1 ¶5 Three days after J.D.’s hospitalization, Sugg participated in a voluntary interview with a police officer. Sugg told the officer that, the day after Christmas, as L.D. was going to pull J.D. out of his swing, she tripped on the swing’s leg and fell and hit her knees and shins on the hardwood floor while holding J.D. Sugg was uncertain if J.D.’s head “hit the Pack n’ Play or possibly went down to the floor or [whether] just that jerking motion in general” affected J.D. But he confirmed that the doctors said, “It couldn’t have been that 1 “Abusive Head Trauma” (AHT) replaced the term “Shaken Baby Syndrome” (SBS) in the medical community because “the etiology of the injury is multifactorial (shaking, shaking and impact, impact, etc.),” and AHT was “the current best and inclusive term.” Arabinda Kumar Choudhary et al., Consensus Statement on Abusive Head Trauma in Infants and Young Children, 48 Pediatric Radiology 1048, 1048 (2018). The relevant case law in Colorado predates the use of the term AHT and still refers to SBS or “Shaken-Impact Syndrome.” See, e.g., People v. Rector, 248 P.3d 1196, 1198 (Colo. 2011); People v. Martinez, 74 P.3d 316, 324 (Colo. 2003). At trial and on appeal, the People primarily refer to AHT or “non-accidental trauma,” while Sugg’s counsel refers to SBS and SBS/AHT. To avoid confusion, we will use “SBS/AHT” unless referring to a specific instance in the record when “AHT” or “SBS” was used. 2  [incident,] it had to be sooner.” After the officer probed him about J.D.’s injur