Peo v. Roark

CourtColorado Court of Appeals
DecidedOctober 9, 2025
Docket23CA0520
StatusUnpublished

This text of Peo v. Roark (Peo v. Roark) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Colorado Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

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Peo v. Roark, (Colo. Ct. App. 2025).

Opinion

23CA0520 Peo v Roark 10-09-2025

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 23CA0520 Adams County District Court No. 78CR7987 Honorable Patrick H. Pugh, Judge

The People of the State of Colorado,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

Douglas Roark,

Defendant-Appellant.

ORDER AFFIRMED

Division I Opinion by JUDGE MOULTRIE J. Jones and Kuhn, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced October 9, 2025

Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Josiah Beamish, Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee

Megan A. Ring, Colorado State Public Defender, Lisa Weisz, Deputy State Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant ¶1 Defendant, Douglas Roark, appeals the postconviction court’s

order denying his petition for postconviction relief under Crim. P.

35(c) without a hearing. We affirm.

I. Background

¶2 In 1978, Roark was charged with several offenses, including,

as relevant here, first degree murder and first degree sexual

assault. The circumstances underlying the charges are set forth in

People v. Roark, 643 P.2d 756 (Colo. 1982), and we need not

reiterate them here.

¶3 A jury convicted Roark of the first degree murder charge along

with several others. However, the supreme court reversed his

convictions on appeal and remanded Roark’s case to the district

court for a new trial. See id. at 774-75. On remand, the

prosecution and Roark reached a plea agreement in which Roark

pleaded guilty to first degree murder in exchange for dismissal of

the remainder of the charges. After accepting the plea agreement,

the court sentenced Roark to an indeterminate term of life in prison

with the possibility of parole after twenty years.

¶4 After being incarcerated for approximately forty-two years, the

Colorado State Board of Parole (parole board) granted Roark’s

1 application for parole in April 2020. Nearly two decades earlier, the

Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) had classified Roark as

an S-4 sex offender because the facts underlying his original

charges and plea included allegations of a sex offense.1 As a result,

the parole board required Roark to “participate in a sex offender

intake [and] evaluation and successfully complete treatment at the

discretion of the sex offender supervision team” as a condition of his

parole.

¶5 In October 2020, RSA, Inc. — a facility that was providing

Roark with sex offender treatment during his parole — discharged

Roark from treatment due to noncompliance. Roark’s parole officer,

Genie Connaghan, then referred Roark to Progressive Therapy

Systems (PTS) for an evaluation. Roark alleges that he received a

report from PTS saying that “treatment would be extremely difficult

1 In 2006, Roark (under an alias) filed a civil rights lawsuit against

the Colorado Department of Corrections and six of its agents under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. See Murphy v. Colo. Dep’t of Corr., 381 F. App’x 828 (10th Cir. 2010). He alleged in relevant part that the defendants had “violated his constitutional rights by wrongfully classifying him as a[n] S-4 sex offender and by refusing to reconsider his sex offender classification.” Id. at 830. The federal district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants, which the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed on appeal. Id. at 829.

2 due to the lengthy period between the offense and treatment.” But,

according to Officer Connaghan, “Roark was denied treatment [at

PTS] because he stated he didn’t want treatment[,] and he was in

denial, even though he wasn’t in denial [while] at RSA.” Officer

Connaghan referred Roark to another treatment provider, but “due

to [Roark’s] denial, high risk, and violence of the crime,” that

provider “would not even do an intake.” Officer Connaghan filed a

complaint (the complaint) to revoke Roark’s parole. The parole

board held a hearing on the complaint in December 2020.

¶6 At the hearing, Roark pleaded guilty. Roark admitted to

“screwing up” and violating a condition of his parole by being

discharged from sex offender treatment, but he explained to the

hearing officer that the violation was a result of the numerous

barriers he faced upon release, rather than any malicious intent.

The hearing officer found Roark guilty, revoked his parole, and

remanded Roark to the CDOC. The parole board reviewed Roark’s

parole eligibility again in May 2021 but deferred the possibility of

his re-parole until May 2022.

3 ¶7 In July 2021, Roark received a letter from the parole board in

response to an appeal he had filed in June 2021.2 The letter

indicated that the hearing officer rendered the decision to revoke

Roark’s parole in December 2020 and that any appeal needed to be

postmarked within thirty days of a revocation decision. Thus,

because Roark’s appeal was postmarked in June 2021 — beyond

the thirty-day deadline — his appeal was untimely, and the parole

board wouldn’t consider it.

¶8 In October 2021, Roark filed a pro se petition for

postconviction relief under Crim. P. 35(c). The postconviction court

appointed counsel for Roark, and the public defender assigned to

represent Roark later filed a supplement to Roark’s pro se petition

(collectively, postconviction motion). In his postconviction motion,

Roark asserted that he should be afforded an evidentiary hearing on

whether (1) the CDOC’s S-4 classification and requirement for

offense-specific treatment as a condition of parole violated due

process; (2) the parole revocation process violated his right to due

process; (3) the thirty-day deadline to appeal the parole revocation

2 A copy of the appeal he sent to the parole board doesn’t appear in

the record.

4 was arbitrary and capricious; and (4) the parole board’s deferment

of his eligibility for re-parole in May 2021 violated double jeopardy.

After considering the prosecution’s response and Roark’s reply, the

postconviction court denied Roark’s postconviction motion without

a hearing.

¶9 Roark appeals the summary denial of his motion and asserts

that he is entitled to an evidentiary hearing on the claims for relief

that he raised in his postconviction motion. For the reasons

discussed below, we disagree.

II. Standard of Review

¶ 10 We review de novo a postconviction court’s decision to deny a

Crim. P. 35(c) motion without an evidentiary hearing. People v.

Cali, 2020 CO 20, ¶ 14. “A defendant need not set forth the

evidentiary support for his allegations in his initial Crim. P. 35

motion; instead, a defendant need only assert facts that if true

would provide a basis for relief under Crim. P. 35.” White v. Dist.

Ct., 766 P.2d 632, 635 (Colo. 1988). The purpose of an evidentiary

hearing on a Crim. P. 35(c) motion “is to receive evidence pertinent

to allegations that cannot be disposed of by reference to the trial

record alone.” People v. Fernandez, 53 P.3d 773, 775 (Colo. App.

5 2002). “A court may deny a defendant’s Crim. P. 35(c) motion

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