(COLORADO) — The Supreme Court of the State of Colorado has upheld a man’s conviction after his attorney called for the court to overturn it due to an inadmissible testimony.

On Monday, Feb. 10, the court met to reach a decision over Patrick Frazee’s 2022 conviction, where he was found guilty of murdering his then-fiancee Kelsey Berreth on Thanksgiving day in 2018. Both shared a daughter who at the time was one-year-old. After the trial, Frazee’s attorney claimed that testimony from an expert witness during the trial should not have been admissible in court and appealed the conviction.

The testimony was from a Department of Human Services caseworker who met with Frazee after he was arrested in 2018 to discuss his daughter’s custody, needs, and additional questions about her care.

Court documents stated that the caseworker “…was not a law enforcement officer and who had never been trained in law enforcement interrogation techniques, did not provide Miranda warnings to Frazee.”

After the meeting ended, the caseworker documented what she had learned in a Referral/Assessment Summary and they were later chosen by the People to be a witness according to court documents. Frazee suppressed all statements he had made to the caseworker, and agreed that the custodial interrogation occurred without the requisite Miranda warnings, and violated his constitutional rights.

“The court then opined that, by its terms, Miranda applies only to actions of law enforcement
officials, and the court noted the statutory duties imposed on state human services departments to investigate and act in circumstances like those present here to ensure that the needs of the child are satisfied and to keep the court and the parents apprised as to the status of the matter,” court documents said.

Miranda rights typically apply to law enforcement officers conducting custodial interrogations, and nonlaw enforcement officers acting as agents of the law.

“Accordingly, she had no obligation to provide Frazee with Miranda warnings before speaking with him,” court documents stated. “In light of the foregoing, we need not reach the question of whether Frazee was in custody for Miranda purposes.”

The court found that the caseworker was not acting as an agent of law enforcement, but independently as her actions in the case were consistent with her duties under the Children’s Code from the Department of Human Services. Therefore, Frazee’s conviction was upheld.

In 2022, Frazee was found guilty of First Degree Murder, Felony Murder, three counts of Solicitation to Commit First Degree Murder, and Tampering with a Deceased Human Body. His conviction was followed by a life sentence in prison without the possibility of parole, as well as 156 years for Berreth’s murder.