People v. Valadez

2016 COA 62, 374 P.3d 529, 2016 WL 1593732
CourtColorado Court of Appeals
DecidedApril 21, 2016
DocketCourt of Appeals No. 14CA2396
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 2016 COA 62 (People v. Valadez) 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. Valadez, 2016 COA 62, 374 P.3d 529, 2016 WL 1593732 (Colo. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

Opinion by

JUDGE FREYRE

1 This appeal presents an issue of first impression: If a Colorado prison inmate commits a misdemeanor offense in prison, and the district court imposes a consecutive county jail sentence on the misdemeanor, which sentence is served first, the jail sentence or the remainder of the prison sentence? < Applying section 18-1.3-501(1)(c), C.R.8.2015, we hold that the prisoner must be remanded to county jail to serve the jail sentence first and then be transferred back to the Department of Corrections (DOC) to serve the remainder of the prison sentence. Therefore, we reverse the district court's order in this case ruling that defendant, Ed« ward Valadez, must serve the remainder of his prison sentence before his jail sentence, and we remand for further proceedings.

L. Background

1 2 While serving a prison sentence in the custody of the DOC, Mr. Valadez committed an assault, He pleaded guilty to third degree assault, a class 1 misdemeanor, In 2008, the district court sentenced him to fifteen months in the county jail. It ordered the jail sentence to be served consecutively to the prison sentence Mr. Valadez was already serving. - ~ |

T3 In 2014, Mr. Valadez filed the Crim. P. 85(a) motion at issue. According to the motion, after the 2008 sentencing hearing, he was returned to the DOC to serve the remainder of his thirty-five-year prison sentence before beginning to serve his fifteen-month. jail sentence, This pending county jail sentence created a detainer on Mr. Vala-dez's prison sentence that affected his parole eligibility date and his eligibility for transitional placements in the community. He claimed that, under section' 18-1.3-501(1)(c), he should have been allowed to serve his jail sentence before serving the remainder of his prison sentence. He asked the district court to amend the mittimus to reflect time served on the jail sentence so that the detainer would be removed from his prison sentence.

T4 Section 18-1.3-501(1)(c), a provision within the statute governing sentencing for misdemeanor offenses, states:

A term of imprisonment in a county jail for a conviction of a misdemeanor, petty, or traffic misdemeanor offense shall not be ordered to be served consecutively to a sentence to be served in a state correctional facility; except that if, at the time of sentencing, the court determines, after consideration of all the relevant facts and cireumstances, that a concurrent sentence is not warranted, the court may order that the misdemeanor sentence be served prior to the sentence to be served in the state correctional facility and prior to the time the defendant is transported to the state correctional facility to serve all 'or the remainder of the defendant's state correctional facility sentence.

1 5 The district court denied Mr, Valadez's motion, concluding that section 18-1.3-5O01(1)(c) does not apply where a defendant has already begun serving his prison sentence at the time he is, sentenced for the misdemeanor, The court reasoned;

Section 18-1.8-501(1)(c) ... applies to felony sentences imposed at the same time as misdemeanor sentences, or imposed in such a way as to interrupt a misdemeanor sentence.... [Thhe plain language of the statute applies to misdemeanor sentences being imposed consecutively to felony DOC sentences "to be served," not sentences already being served.

II. Analysis

A. Initial Matters

|| 1 6 We consider two issues before addressing the merits. First, there is a question whether Mr. Valadez's Crim. P. 35(a) claim challenges an actual aspect of the district court's original sentence. The sentencing hearing transeript is not part of the record on appeal, so the record does not explicitly show whether the district court required Mr. Valadez to serve his prison sentence before his jail sentence, The mittimus only reflects the consecutive nature of the sentences.

[531]*531T7 However, the People do not challenge this issue and agree in their answer brief that this issue was properly brought under Crim. P. 85(a). Accordingly, we deem Mr. Valadez's Crim. P. 85(a) claim as properly challenging an aspect of his sentence.

18 Next, we conclude that the motion was timely, although Mr. Valadez raised it more than six years after the sentencmg hearing. A claim that a sentence is "not authorized by law" may be raised "at any time," while a claim that a sentence was "imposed in an illegal manner" must be raised within the time limit provided by Crim. P. 85(b). See Crim. P. 85(a). Because Mr. Valadez contends that his sentence violates section 18-1.8-501(1)(c), we construe the claim as one "not authorized by law." See People v. Wenzinger, 155 P.3d 415, 418 (Colo.App.2006) ("[A] sentence is 'not authorized by law' under ... Crim. P. 35(g) if it is inconsistent with the statutory scheme out-'The claim is lined by thé legislature."). therefore not time barred.

B. Standard of Review

4 9 "The legality of a sentence is a question of law that we review de novo." People v. Bassford 2014 COA 15, ¶ 20, 343 P.3d 1003, We also review questions of statutory inter-pretatmn de novo. See Reno v. Marks, 2015 CO 33, ¶ 20, 349 P.3d 248.

C. Section 18-1.8-501(1)}(c)

110 We begin by analyzing the language of section 18-1.8-501(1)(c). In doing so, we give words and phrases their plain and ordinary meanings. See Reno, 120. If statutory language is unambiguous, we apply the language as written and do not resort to other rules of statutory interpretation. Id:

« T11 The first clause of section 18-1.3-501(1)(c) creates a general rule that "[al term of imprisonment in a county jail for a convietion of a misdemeanor, petty, or traffic misdemeanor offense shall not be ordered to be served consecutively to a - sentence to be served in a state correctional facility." Id. And the second clause of section 18-1.3-501(1)(c) creates an exception to that general rule: |

exeept that if, at the time of sentencing, the court determines, after consideration of all the relevant facts and cireumstances, that a concurrent sentence is not warrant ed, the court may order that the misdemeanor sentence be served prior to the sentence to be served in the state correctional facility and prior to the time the defendant is transported to the state cor-réctional facility to serve all or the remainder of the defendant's state correctional faclhty sentence bo C ~
1. Amb1gulty of the General Rule

(12 Under section 18-1. 3—501(1)(c), a district court generally may not order a county jail sentence to be served consecutively to a prison sentence "to be served" in thé custody of the DOC. The phrase "to be served" is ambiguous, The district court ruled, and the People argue on appeal, that the phrase "to be served" refers only to a prison sentence that a defendant has not yet begun serving. Thus, the district court held that section 18-1.3-501(1)(c) did not apply here because Mr. Valadez had already begun serving his prison sentence at the time he was sentenced on the misdemeanor.

13 That is one reasonable interpretation of the first clause of section 18-1.3-501(1)(c) (the general rule precluding a consecutive jail sentence), but not the only one.

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Bluebook (online)
2016 COA 62, 374 P.3d 529, 2016 WL 1593732, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-valadez-coloctapp-2016.