## Facts

- After drinking at a restaurant bar, Wayne Robert Stewart drove in the adjacent parking lot.
- Witnesses testified Stewart veered toward three pedestrians and his vehicle brushed one, Richard Ehrmann.
- Stewart argued with the pedestrians and then drove angrily back and forth in the lot.
- Stewart’s vehicle struck Ehrmann again; Ehrmann landed on the hood, rolled off, and the rear wheel ran over his head, causing severe injuries.
- A jury convicted Stewart of reckless second-degree assault with a deadly weapon (an automobile) and reckless endangerment, and acquitted him of vehicular assault.
- At trial, the prosecution introduced an investigating officer’s testimony describing how the incident occurred, including reconstruction-style opinions, without formally qualifying the officer as an expert.

## Issues

1. Whether reckless second-degree assault with a deadly weapon violates equal protection because it allegedly criminalizes the same conduct as vehicular assault but carries a harsher penalty.
2. Whether the trial court committed plain error by not instructing on intervening cause for the second-degree assault count when an intervening-cause instruction was given for vehicular assault.
3. Whether admitting an investigating officer’s reconstruction and causation opinions without expert qualification was error, and if so, whether it required reversal.
4. Whether a limited remand is required for the trial court to consider a defendant’s motion for an appeal bond.

## Decision

- The court held the assault and vehicular-assault statutes do not punish identical conduct and therefore the assault statute does not violate equal protection.
- The court held there was no plain error in omitting an intervening-cause instruction on the second-degree assault count because the instructions given adequately addressed causation and the record did not make intervening cause a necessary instruction.
- The court held the trial court abused its discretion by allowing reconstruction-type testimony without qualifying the officer as an expert, but the error was harmless given the other evidence.
- The court held a limited remand is not required for a trial court to consider a motion for an appeal bond.
- The court affirmed in part and reversed in part the intermediate appellate decision and reinstated the second-degree assault conviction.

## Legal Principles

- Equal protection is not violated by differing penalties for overlapping offenses unless the statutes punish identical conduct; reasonable distinctions in elements and legislative purposes permit different punishments.
- Unpreserved instructional error is reviewed for plain error; reversal requires an obvious error that so undermines trial fairness as to cast serious doubt on the conviction’s reliability.
- A specific intervening-cause instruction is not required where general causation instructions adequately inform the jury and the evidence does not support a causal break as a matter of law.
- Police officer opinions that depend on specialized accident-reconstruction knowledge are expert testimony and generally require qualification under rules governing expert evidence; erroneous admission may be harmless if cumulative and not outcome-determinative.
- Trial courts may consider appeal-bond motions without an appellate limited remand.

## Conclusion

The Colorado Supreme Court upheld Stewart’s reckless second-degree assault conviction, rejecting an equal-protection challenge based on overlap with vehicular assault, finding no plain error in the absence of an intervening-cause instruction for the assault count, treating the officer’s unqualified reconstruction opinions as harmless error, and confirming that no limited remand is needed for appeal-bond consideration.


People v. Stewart, 55 P.3d 107 (Colo. 2002)