{"id":23305,"date":"2025-03-01T13:42:12","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T20:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-court-of-appeals-upholds-verdict-in-crash-that-killed-cortez-man\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:32:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:32:54","slug":"colorado-court-of-appeals-upholds-verdict-in-crash-that-killed-cortez-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-court-of-appeals-upholds-verdict-in-crash-that-killed-cortez-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado Court of Appeals upholds verdict in crash that killed Cortez man"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Montezuma
Montezuma County Combined Courts, including the 22nd Judicial District court. Former finance director Katheryn Moss\u2019s arraignment date was set with the district court for Aug. 27.<\/span>The Journal file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Colorado Court of Appeals recently affirmed the Montezuma County District Court judgment in the case that left a 20-year-old Cortez man dead in May 2022.<\/p>\n

In March of 2023, a jury found Gabrielle D. Juan Doctor of Kayenta, Arizona, guilty of \u201cmultiple criminal charges stemming from a car and motorcycle collision resulting in death.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to reports, Doctor was driving west on Main Street when he attempted to make a left turn onto South Sligo Street. When he turned, he collided with Travis Beeson, 20, who was riding a motorcycle. Beeson was flown to St. Mary\u2019s Medical Center in Grand Junction, where he died May 27.<\/p>\n

\"Gabrielle
Gabrielle D. Juan Doctor.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

When police arrived, Doctor told them the sun was in his eyes \u201cand he didn\u2019t see the motorcycle until it was too late.\u201d It was later revealed that he was not wearing the \u201ccorrective lenses\u201d that were required per his driver\u2019s license.<\/p>\n

Though Doctor was found not guilty of vehicular homicide and criminally negligent homicide charges, he was found guilty of driving while ability impaired, child abuse (negligence, no injury), careless driving resulting in death, compulsory insurance, failure to yield right of way and no child\u00a0restraint.<\/p>\n

\"Travis
Travis Beeson during his time as a baseball player for Montezuma-Cortez High School. He graduated from MCHS in 2020.<\/span>Julie Carlson\/For The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Doctor\u2019s 6-year-old niece, who was also in the vehicle, was unrestrained in the backseat, and he told police he had been drinking the night before and the morning of the crash. Officers found empty alcohol containers in his vehicle in addition to a \u201cmakeshift\u201d pipe with burned marijuana residue.<\/p>\n

He was arrested on suspicion of driving while ability impaired. Two hours after the collision, his blood alcohol content was found to be 0.057.<\/p>\n

Doctor appealed the judgment, saying the trial court \u201cerred by denying his motion to suppress evidence obtained during a roadside sobriety test,\u201d as well as \u201callowing the prosecution to display an\u00a0in-life photograph\u201d of Beeson during the trial. He added that the \u201cprosecutor engaged in misconduct during closing argument.\u201d<\/p>\n

During voluntary roadside maneuvers, officer Kadan Sharp, who was new to the police department at the time, reportedly did not see signs of impairment in Doctor with a horizontal gaze nystagmus test. Sgt. Glenn Edwards, \u201cunsure of Sharp\u2019s assessment,\u201d asked Doctor if he could look at his eyes. Though Doctor agreed, according to reports, he noted in his appeal that he was not consenting to another test.<\/p>\n

The trial court decided Doctor did consent to the additional test, as \u201cany reasonable person would have understood that Edwards was asking to repeat the HGN test that Sharp had performed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doctor\u2019s appeal also questioned the inclusion of an \u201cin-life photograph\u201d of Beeson that was used during the trial. His appeal noted that the photograph may have swayed the jury.<\/p>\n

When Beeson\u2019s father testified at the trial, the court allowed him to display a photo of Beeson before the accident.<\/p>\n

Two jurors reportedly cried after viewing the photo, causing the defense counsel to move for a mistrial, which was denied. The photo was displayed again during closing arguments.<\/p>\n

The Court of Appeals pointed to the split verdict as an indicator that the photograph was \u201charmless.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile a split verdict does not\u00a0conclusively decide the harmlessness question, it is \u2018an indication\u00a0that the jurors exercised some discretion in their deliberations and\u00a0that the error did not cause them to \u2018blindly convict the defendant,\u2019\u201d the Court of Appeals said.<\/p>\n

Finally, Doctor said he is \u201centitled\u201d to a new trial because the prosecution shared what his BAC may have been at the time of the accident, 0.077 and 0.107, and alleged that he had \u201cused marijuana while children were in the car\u201d during closing arguments.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe asserts the prosecutor attempted to inflame the jury\u2019s passions by displaying the in-life photograph of the victim\u00a0and arguing that the victim \u2018lost more than his life. His parents\u00a0lost the ability to see him get married, have kids, have a successful life,\u2019\u201d the Court of Appeals added.<\/p>\n

The Court of Appeals disagreed that the range suggested for Doctor\u2019s BAC was improper expert testimony, saying they were \u201cexplicitly based on an expert toxicologist\u2019s testimony.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Court of Appeals did agree, however, that the prosecutor\u2019s comments regarding alleged marijuana usage in the vehicle were \u201cimproper,\u201d as the court had \u201cproperly instructed the jury that there was no evidence that Doctor used marijuana with children in\u00a0the vehicle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNevertheless, we cannot conclude these comments warrant\u00a0reversal. As described above, the evidence that Doctor failed to\u00a0yield, lacked insurance, failed to use a child restraint and engaged\u00a0in negligent child abuse was undisputed, and the evidence of careless driving resulting in death and DWAI was strong,\u201d the Court of Appeals said. \u201cThe\u00a0prosecutor\u2019s improper comments were relatively brief and isolated and the jury\u2019s split verdict indicates that it was able to fairly\u00a0consider the evidence despite them.\u201d<\/p>\n

In April 2023, Doctor was sentenced to 180 days of jail, with 180 days credit for time served, 50 hours of useful public service, Level II education, Track B Outpatient Therapy and a victim impact panel for DWAI. This sentence was set to run concurrently with the sentences for child abuse (negligence, no injury) and careless driving resulting in death.<\/p>\n

For Count 3, child abuse (negligence, no injury), Doctor was sentenced to 365 days of jail with 275 days credited for time served.<\/p>\n

The sentence for careless driving resulting in death was 365 days of jail with 275 days credit for time served.<\/p>\n

As with the two prior sentences, Doctor was sentenced to 365 days of jail with 275 days credit for time served for failure to display proof of insurance. This sentence was set to run concurrently with the prior sentences.<\/p>\n

Doctor was also fined $50 for failure to yield right of way and $50 for child restraint not used.<\/p>\n

The judgment was affirmed and announced on Feb. 20, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gabrielle Doctor was convicted of killing Travis Beeson in 2023<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,133,168,28,60,29,254],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-road-crash"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23305"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78063,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23305\/revisions\/78063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23305"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}