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712 P.2d 1023

Heller v. People

Supreme Court of Colorado

Decided January 31, 1986

Supreme Court of Colorado · decided 1986-01-31

Relies on People v. Riley · People v. Heller

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1986-01-31

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently October 2009

8 state decisions

40198619902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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PER CURIAM.

¶1 We granted certiorari to consider the decision of the court of appeals in Heller v. People, 698 P.2d 1357 (Colo.App.1984), which affirmed the conviction of the defendant, Richard G. Heller, on four counts of securities fraud. One of the issues on which we granted certiorari was whether the trial court erred in instructing the jury that good faith is not a defense to the charge of fraudulent and other prohibited practices in the sale of securities.

¶2 In People v. Riley, 708 P.2d 1359 (Colo.1985), we held that such an instruction was erroneous and irreconcilable with the requisite culpability for a securities fraud violation. Our holding in Riley is controlling here and requires that the judgment of the court of appeals be reversed. With respect to the other issue on which the writ of certiorari issued, we now discharge the writ as improvidently granted.

¶3 The judgment is accordingly reversed, and this case is returned to the court of appeals with directions to remand the case to the district court for a new trial.

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