Peo in Interest of JW

23CA2140 Peo in Interest of JW 11-26-2025

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 23CA2140
Arapahoe County District Court No. 21JD402
Honorable Bonnie H. McLean, Judge

The People of the State of Colorado,

Petitioner-Appellee,

In the Interest of J.W.,

Juvenile-Appellant.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED

Division III
Opinion by JUDGE DUNN
Lipinsky and Kuhn, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e)
Announced November 26, 2025

Phillip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Jenna Baker, Assistant Attorney General
Fellow, Denver, Colorado, for Petitioner-Appellee

Megan A. Ring, Colorado State Public Defender, Christina Van Wagenen,
Deputy State Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, for Juvenile-Appellant
¶1 J.W. appeals his adjudication of delinquency for possession of

a handgun and a controlled substance. He argues that the trial

court erred by (1) denying his motion to suppress evidence and

(2) admitting evidence absent a proper chain of custody. We affirm.

I. Background

¶2 While working an overnight shift, Officer Thomas McClay saw

a truck pull into a gas station around 2 a.m. The driver — later

identified as J.W., then a juvenile — got out of the truck and went

inside the station. Officer McClay ran the truck’s license plate

number and learned the plate was registered to a different vehicle.

At that point, J.W. left the store and headed toward the truck.

¶3 Officer McClay approached J.W. and asked if the truck was

his. After J.W. said it was, Officer McClay instructed J.W. to sit on

the hood of his police car and asked, “Do you have any weapons on

you man?” When J.W. responded, “No,” Officer McClay asked,

“Mind if I check?” J.W. said, “Yeah, I do got a weapon on me,” and

he spread his arms out and faced Officer McClay. J.W. then added

that “it’s in my pocket” and “it’s loaded.” Officer McClay frisked

J.W. and removed a handgun from J.W.’s front hoodie pocket.

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¶4 Officer McClay handcuffed J.W. and other officers arrived at

the scene. During a post-arrest search, J.W. said that he had

drugs in his sock. Testing confirmed that one of the items found in

J.W.’s sock was LSD.

¶5 The prosecution filed a petition in delinquency charging J.W.

with possession of a handgun by a juvenile and two counts of

unlawful possession of a controlled substance.

¶6 Before trial, J.W. moved to suppress the gun and drugs found

during the search, arguing that the evidence was “obtained as a

result of an unlawful detention, search, seizure, [and] arrest.”1

Though the case was assigned to a magistrate, a district court judge

sitting for the magistrate conducted the suppression hearing. At

the hearing, Officer McClay testified and the prosecution introduced

his body camera video. The court denied the motion to suppress,

concluding that officer safety and the surrounding circumstances

supported the protective frisk.

1 While J.W. also sought to suppress statements he made to the

officers under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), he does not
reassert this claim on appeal. We therefore don’t consider it. See
People v. Rodriguez, 914 P.2d 230, 249 (Colo. 1996).

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¶7 After a bench trial, the magistrate adjudicated J.W. delinquent

for possession of a handgun and one count of unlawful possession

of a controlled substance (the prosecution dismissed the remaining

possession charge during the trial). The magistrate sentenced J.W.

to nine months of supervised probation.

¶8 J.W. filed a petition in the district court seeking review of the

suppression ruling and the “ultimately final order of adjudication.”

J.W., however, did not raise any evidentiary issues in his petition.

On review, the district court denied the petition. It reasoned that

because a district court judge — not the magistrate — issued the

suppression ruling, it had “no authority to overrule the judgment of

another district court judge.” The district court concluded that “the

appropriate remedy is a petition to the court of appeals.”

II. Motion to Suppress

¶9 J.W. again challenges the suppression ruling. He contends

that because Officer McClay “lacked reasonable suspicion to believe

J.W. was armed,” the frisk exceeded the scope of the investigatory

stop and the court erred by not suppressing the handgun. We

disagree.

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A. Legal Principles and Standard of Review

¶ 10 The United States and Colorado Constitutions protect

individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures. U.S. Const.

amend. IV; Colo. Const. art. II, § 7. But a police officer may

conduct an investigatory stop if (1) there is a specific and

articulable basis for suspecting criminal activity; (2) the purpose of

the stop is reasonable; and (3) the scope and the character of the

stop are reasonably related to its purpose. People v. White,

2023 CO 43, ¶ 32; see § 16-3-103(1), C.R.S. 2025. And if an officer

has an articulable and objectively reasonable belief that a suspect is

armed and dangerous, the officer may frisk the individual for officer

safety. People v. Johnson, 2024 CO 47, ¶ 27.

¶ 11 Review of a trial court’s suppression order presents a mixed

question of law and fact. People v. Trujillo-Tucson, 2022 CO 31,

¶ 14. We defer to findings of fact if supported by the evidence, but

we review the legal effect of those facts de novo. Id. We may

independently review police bodycam video when, as here, no facts

outside the recording control the suppression issue. See id. And

we may affirm a suppression ruling on any grounds supported by

the record. People v. Stock, 2017 CO 80, ¶ 13.

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B. The Frisk Was Reasonable

¶ 12 J.W. does not dispute that Officer McClay had reasonable

suspicion to conduct an investigatory stop related to the

mismatched license plate. J.W. instead argues that Officer McClay

was not authorized to frisk him for weapons “without a

particularized suspicion that J.W. was armed and dangerous.”

Thus, he maintains that the gun should have been suppressed.

¶ 13 But J.W.’s argument presupposes that Officer McClay simply

stopped and frisked J.W. That’s not what happened. Rather, at the

outset of the stop, Officer McClay asked J.W. if he had any

weapons. When J.W. said “[n]o,” Officer McClay asked J.W. if he

could check. J.W. agreed, saying “[y]eah” and then immediately

admitted he had a loaded weapon. Only at this point — after J.W.

admitted that he was armed — did Officer McClay frisk J.W. for

weapons. Once J.W. admitted that he had a loaded weapon, Officer

McClay had reasonable suspicion that J.W. was armed and could

be dangerous. See Johnson, ¶ 27. The protective frisk was

therefore not unreasonable. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30-31

(1968); see also People v. Rushdoony, 97 P.3d 338, 344 (Colo. App.

2004) (“[W]e decline to disturb the trial court’s ruling that

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[defendant saying he had a knife in response to officer question]

was sufficient to allow the deputy to proceed with a patdown search

for weapons.”).

¶ 14 We disagree with J.W. that he “only admitted to having a

weapon after McClay expressed an intent to search him.” Review of

the bodycam video confirms that Officer McClay did not say he

intended to search J.W. Rather, he asked J.W., “Mind if I check” for

weapons. And Officer McClay did not initiate a frisk before J.W.

answered the question and admitted that he had a weapon. Thus,

Officer McClay’s request to check for weapons (“Mind if I check?”)

did not “functionally” initiate the search, as J.W. asserts.

¶ 15 We are equally unpersuaded by J.W.’s contention that, by

asking about weapons, Officer McClay impermissibly exceeded the

scope of the stop. “[O]ff-topic questioning is permissible so long as

it does not measurably extend the investigatory stop.” People v.

Ashford, 2020 CO 16, ¶ 17; see also Muehler v. Mena, 544 U.S. 93,

101 (2005) (finding that officers didn’t need reasonable suspicion

for unrelated questioning about immigration status that didn’t

prolong the detention). The bodycam video confirms that Officer

McClay asked about weapons within seconds of encountering J.W.

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The weapons questions did not prolong — let alone “measurably

extend” — the stop. See Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 323, 333

(2009).

¶ 16 Because we may affirm on any ground supported by the record

and because we conclude that J.W.’s admission that he had a gun

provided Officer McClay with reasonable suspicion to conduct a

protective frisk, we needn’t consider whether the court erred by

concluding that officer safety and the surrounding circumstances

supported the protective frisk.2

¶ 17 We therefore affirm the order denying the motion to suppress,

albeit on different grounds than the trial court.

2 While J.W. now also appears to raise additional arguments about

the purpose of the stop and whether he consented to the frisk, he
did not raise these arguments in his petition to the district court for
review of the suppression ruling. We therefore do not consider
them. People in Interest of K.L-P., 148 P.3d 402, 403 (Colo. App.
2006) (noting that, because a petition for review of a magistrate’s
ruling is a prerequisite to an appeal, a party is required to present
an issue in a petition for review before we may consider it on
appeal).

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III. Drug Evidence

¶ 18 J.W. also claims that the magistrate presiding over his trial

erred by admitting drug evidence without proper authentication.

Because this issue is unpreserved, we do not consider it.3

¶ 19 A petition for district court review of a magistrate’s order is a

prerequisite to an appeal. § 19-1-108(5.5), C.R.S. 2025; see People

in Interest of K.L-P., 148 P.3d 402, 403 (Colo. App. 2006). If a

petition for review doesn’t raise a particular issue, the district court

never has an opportunity to correct any magistrate error, and we

may not consider the issue for the first time on appeal. K.L-P., 148

P.3d at 403. And because juvenile justice proceedings are civil in

nature, In re People in Interest of A.T.C., 2023 CO 19, ¶ 20, criminal

plain error review does not apply, see People in Interest of M.B.,

2020 COA 13, ¶¶ 18-19 (declining to apply criminal plain error

review for unpreserved issues in a juvenile proceeding and

determining it is only necessary in rare civil cases “to avert

unequivocal and manifest injustice” (citation omitted)).

3 Though the People agree that J.W. preserved this issue, “an

appellate court has an independent, affirmative duty to determine
whether a claim is preserved.” People v. Tallent, 2021 CO 68, ¶ 11.

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¶ 20 Since J.W. did not raise this evidentiary argument in his

petition for review of the adjudication order, we do not review it.

IV. Disposition

¶ 21 We affirm the adjudication.

JUDGE LIPINSKY and JUDGE KUHN concur.

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