ADAMS COUNTY, Colo. — A man has pleaded guilty and been resentenced for a 2019 murder after the Colorado Court of Appeals overturned his original conviction and sentence last year after they found that a district court judge used a flawed analogy for explaining the concept of reasonable doubt.
Gary Lynn Wideman, 42, pleaded guilty on Oct. 16 to second-degree murder and first-degree assault. Wideman is now sentenced to 48 years in prison.
Wideman was convicted by a jury in November 2019 of killing Brenda Lee Martinez, 37, and wounding three others in a shooting at a Thornton sports bar in 2018. Martinez was a bartender there.
Wideman was initially convicted of:
- First-degree murder after deliberation with extreme indifference
- Five counts of attempted first-degree murder
- Three counts of first-degree assault
He was sentenced to life in prison plus 100 years in February 2020.
However, in October 2023, the case against Wideman was reversed by the Colorado Court of Appeals, according to Colorado Politics.
During jury selection for Wideman's trial, then-District Court Judge Tomee Crespin attempted to explain the concept of reasonable doubt by asking the jury to imagine an exhaustive quest to find a dream home, then suddenly seeing it on the market, according to Colorado Politics.
"The sun is literally only shining on this one piece of property. Everywhere else it’s snowy and cloudy, except for this one piece of pristine property," Crespin said. "You walk up to the closet and you notice a crack above the closet door. Are we still buying that house?"
The judge continued to add other defects to the example such as crumbling drywall and a defective door. She then asked jurors whether they would proceed with purchasing the home, Colorado Politics reported. Crespin explained in drawing a parallel to her analogy that reasonable doubt is a hesitation to act in matters of importance and said, "We use it everyday. We just don't call it that."
A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals said that Crespin inadvertently suggested to jurors that even if a defect surfaced in the "home," meaning the prosecution's case, they should abandon the "purchase" and vote to acquit only if more doubts surfaced, Colorado Politics reported.
