People v. Hargrove

2013 COA 165, 338 P.3d 413, 2013 WL 6354531, 2013 Colo. App. LEXIS 1873
CourtColorado Court of Appeals
DecidedDecember 5, 2013
DocketCourt of Appeals No. 12CA1582
StatusPublished
Cited by670 cases

This text of 2013 COA 165 (People v. Hargrove) 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.

Bluebook
People v. Hargrove, 2013 COA 165, 338 P.3d 413, 2013 WL 6354531, 2013 Colo. App. LEXIS 1873 (Colo. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

Opinion by

JUDGE TAUBMAN

T1 The People appeal the trial court's determination that a forty-eight year prison sentence under the habitual criminal statute would be grossly disproportionate to the crimes of defendant, John Hargrove. The trial court imposed a sentence of twelve years in prison. We reverse and remand.

I. Background

1 2 The People charged Hargrove with felony escape after his parole officer could not locate him when the battery on the GPS monitor on his ankle bracelet had not been charged. The People also charged Hargrove with four habitual eriminal counts based on his previous felony convictions for sexual assault-force, criminal impersonation, failing to register as a sex offender, and possession of a schedule II controlled substance. The jury found Hargrove guilty of escape.

T8 At the sentencing hearing, the trial court first determined that Hargrove was a habitual criminal based on his felony escape conviction and his four previous felony convictions.

T4 The trial court then conducted an abbreviated proportionality review, but explicitly declined to conduct an extended proportionality review, stating:

The extended review would get into details of underlying offenses[.] [T}he abbreviated review would just [involve analyzing] the names of the charges and what level felony they are without getting into details.... Under cireumstances where the Court can look at the prior record and see that we are truly dealing with what one, at a glance, could see as a demonstrative minimalist record ... the Court should hold an extended proportionality review. I cannot look at [defendant's] record and determine that he has ... minimal prior criminal involvement.... If we had the extended hearing, we would go into details and circumstances of a prior sexual assault case, a prior drug case, a prior failure to register case, and so forth We could look at, perhaps, mitigating factors that might occur in each of those.... The Court finds that you can look at the record and say that one cannot look at this and automatically say this is minimalist. ... [TJhis is really not an extended review situation, . it's an abbreviated review situation.

[416]*416After hearing argument from the parties, the trial court discussed Hargrove's five felony convictions, and ultimately concluded:

The Court has granted an abbreviated proportionality review in the case and here's my analysis on that, I find this Defendant has committed one egregious violent felony and that is an aggravated rape.... [However, defendant's eriminal history] does not demonstrate that he is a predatory and violent repeat offender. It demonstrates he committed an extremely serious offense for which he went to prison. After that it demonstrates that he did lesser things that are either in avoidance of his criminal history, avoidance of police, or avoidance of reality.... In this case I find it unconscionable to sentence [defendant] to forty-eight years in [prison]. He has demonstrated that he committed a horrible, violent offense for which he went to prison. The remaining offenses, in the Court's opinion, are minimal at best.... I cannot say this is a habitual criminal that shows a pattern of violence, a pattern of serious convictions.

1[ 5 The trial court sentenced defendant to twelve years in prison-the maximum in the presumptive range for his. class three felony escape conviction, see §§ 18-1.3-401(1)(a)(V)(A), C.R.S.2013rather than forty-eight years in prison under the habitual criminal statute, see § 18-1.3-801(2)(a), C.R.S8.2018.

II. Proportionality Review

T6 The People contend that the trial court erred by concluding that a forty-eight year prison sentence under the habitual criminal statute would be grossly disproportionate to Hargrove's erimes. The People also contend that, even if the trial court's abbreviated proportionality review raised an inference of gross disproportionality, the trial court was required, but failed, to conduct an extended proportionality review.

T7 On this record, we cannot determine whether a forty-eight year prison sentence gives rise to an inference of gross dispropor-tionality. We reverse and remand for further factual development of the record as to three of Hargrove's four previous felony convie-tions. See People v. Gaskins, 825 P.2d 30, 38 & n. 13 (Colo.1992) (in less clear cases, trial court may obtain additional evidence to examine the facts underlying the offenses at issue and to assess the harm caused to the victim or society and the culpability of the offender). After that further factual development, the trial court should conduct an abbreviated proportionality review. If that abbreviated proportionality review gives rise to an inference of gross disproportionality, the trial court must conduct an extended proportionality review. If the abbreviated proportionality review does not give rise to an inference of gross disproportionality, the trial court shall sentence defendant to forty-eight years in prison under the habitual criminal statute.

A. Standard of Review

18 Whether a sentence is constitutionally proportionate is a question of law that we review de novo. People v. Strock, 252 P.3d 1148, 1157 (Colo.App.2010).

B. Applicable Law

T9 Under the habitual criminal statute, a person convicted of a felony who has been previously convicted of three felonies shall be adjudged a habitual criminal and shall be sentenced to four times the maximum of the presumptive range for the class of felony of which the person is convicted. See § 18-1.3-801(2)(a).

110 A sentence under the habitual criminal statute violates the Eighth Amendment if it is grossly disproportionate to the defendant's crimes. See People v. Deroulet, 48 P.3d 520, 523-24 (Colo.2002). However, because courts must grant substantial deference to the broad authority of the General Assembly to determine punishments for crimes, "a successful challenge to the proportionality of a particular sentence is exceedingly rare." People v. Gonyea, 195 P.3d 1171, 1175-76 (Colo.App.2008).

{11 If a defendant challenges the proportionality of his sentence, the trial court must conduct an abbreviated proportionality review, in which it compares the gravity of the offense to the severity of the punishment. [417]*417See Deroulet, 48 P.3d at 521, 524. In conducting an abbreviated proportionality review under the habitual criminal statute, the trial court "must scrutinize the offenses in question to determine 'whether in combination they are so lacking in gravity or seriousness' so as to suggest that the sentence is grossly disproportionate." Id. at 524-25 (quoting Gaskins, 825 P.2d at 36).

$12 Certain crimes are considered per se grave or serious for purposes of an abbreviated proportionality review. See Der-oulet, 48 P.8d at 524 ("grave or serious" crimes for the purpose of proportionality review include aggravated robbery, robbery, burglary, accessory to first degree murder, and narcoties-related crimes).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2013 COA 165, 338 P.3d 413, 2013 WL 6354531, 2013 Colo. App. LEXIS 1873, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-hargrove-coloctapp-2013.