Peo v. Martinez

── Peo v. Martinez ── Court: Colorado Court of Appeals Date: June 04, 2026 Category: General 23CA1573 Peo v Martinez 06-04-2026 COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS Court of Appeals No. 23CA1573 El Paso County District Court No. 21CR7154 Honorable David A. Gilbert, Judge The People of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Paul Martinez, Defendant-Appellant. JUDGMENT AFFIRMED Division V Opinion by JUDGE LIPINSKY Welling and Tow, JJ. concur NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced June 4, 2026 Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Majid Yazdi, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee Megan A. Ring, Colorado State Public Defender, John P. Finnegan, Deputy State Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant ¶1 Paul Martinez appeals his convictions for possession with intent to manufacture or distribute a controlled substance and unlawful possession of a controlled substance. He contends that the trial court erred by (1) admitting evidence that individuals were seen entering and leaving his apartment nine days before detectives found drugs there during a search; (2) admitting insufficiently authenticated drug evidence; (3) allowing the prosecutor to use an improper reasonable doubt analogy during voir dire; (4) admitting a detective’s opinion testimony that Martinez possessed methamphetamine with intent to distribute; and (5) imposing a sentence in the aggravated range in violation of Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), and Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296 (2004). We affirm. I. Background ¶2 While surveilling Martinez’s apartment on November 29, 2021, Detective Erik Gulbrandson saw, within a forty-five-minute period, three people knock on Martinez’s door, be let in, and leave after five minutes or less. (Detective Gulbrandson later acknowledged that one of the three individuals was Martinez’s roommate.) 1 ¶3 On December 8, 2021, while conducting additional surveillance on the apartment, Detective Gulbrandson observed Martinez throw a trash bag into a community bin. Detective Gulbrandson collected the bag and found what he “considered to be drug paraphernalia” inside it. He obtained a search warrant for Martinez’s apartment based on the bag’s contents. ¶4 Detective Gulbrandson and four other detectives executed the search warrant on December 15, 2021. They recovered from the apartment methamphetamine, heroin, packaging material, digital scales, and a vacuum-sealed bag (which Detective Gulbrandson later explained is commonly used to transport drugs). ¶5 Martinez was charged with possession with intent to manufacture or distribute a controlled substance (methamphetamine) and unlawful possession of a controlled substance (heroin) from December 8 to December 15, 2021. Martinez admitted that he used methamphetamine and heroin, but he asserted that he solely possessed the drugs for personal use. ¶6 A jury convicted Martinez of both counts, and the trial court sentenced him to eight years in the custody of the Department of 2  Corrections (DOC) for possession with intent to distribute and time served for possession of a controlled substance. II. Analysis A. Martinez’s Evidentiary Contentions 1. Standard of Review ¶7 “We review a trial court’s evidentiary rulings for an abuse of discretion.” People v. Cross, 2023 COA 24, ¶ 9, 531 P.3d 444, 447 (quoting Rojas v. People, 2022 CO 8, ¶ 16, 504 P.3d 296, 302). “A trial court abuses its discretion if it misconstrues or misapplies the law or otherwise reaches a manifestly arbitrary, unreasonable, or unfair result.” People v. Johnson, 2019 COA 159, ¶ 10, 487 P.3d 1166, 1171, aff’d, 2021