Opinion ID: 2823848
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: analysis

Text: Â¶20Â Â Â Â Â Â Â We have previously determined that even when a defendant fails to strictly comply with the UMDDA, he nevertheless invokes his rights under the Act if (1) his request substantially complies with the Actâs requirements, and (2) the prosecution receives âactual noticeâ of his request. See Mascarenas, 666 P.2d at 106. But we have never defined âactual notice.â Thus, although this case is factually complex, the legal issue that we must resolve on certiorari is straightforward: whether the prosecutionâs receipt of a valid UMDDA request, absent actual knowledge of the request, constitutes âactual notice.â Â¶21Â Â Â Â Â To answer this question, we first examine the text of the UMDDA and its underlying purpose, as well as our jurisprudence regarding substantial compliance. We then consider whether merely sending a substantially compliant UMDDA request to the prosecution suffices to provide âactual notice.â We conclude that it does not andÂ instead determine that for purposes of the UMDDA, âactual noticeâ means âactual knowledge.â Finally, because the record in this case is unclear as to when the prosecution obtained actual knowledge of McKimmyâs various UMDDA requests, we remand to the trial court for further fact-finding.
Â¶22Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â The UMDDA provides that â[a]ny person who is in the custody of the department of corrections . . . may request final disposition of any untried indictment, information, or criminal complaint pending against him in this state.â Â§ 16-14-102(1). Once the trial court and the prosecution receive such a request, the prisoner must be brought to trial on the relevant charge within 182 days. Â§ 16-14-104(1). We have recognized that the Actâs primary purpose is âto provide a mechanism for prisoners to insist upon speedy and final disposition of untried charges . . . so that prison rehabilitation programs initiated for the prisonersâ benefit will not be disrupted.â People v. Higinbotham, 712 P.2d 993, 997 (Colo. 1986). We have also observed, however, that the UMDDA functions as âone of several Colorado statutes implementing the speedy trial rights guaranteed to a defendantâ under the United States and Colorado Constitutions. Id. at 996; see also Johnson v. People, 939 P.2d 817, 820 (Colo. 1997) (noting that the UMDDA âreflect[s] the . . . policy of facilitating the speedy disposition of untried charges upon a proper request by an incarcerated personâ). Consonant with that purpose, the Act mandates that if a prisoner invokes his rights but the trial court fails to comply with the 182-day deadline, âno court of thisÂ state shall any longer have jurisdictionâ over the relevant charge, and âthe court shall dismiss it with prejudice.â Â§ 16-14-104(1). Â¶23Â Â Â Â For a prisoner to invoke his rights under the Act, his request must be in writing and must be addressed both âto the court in which the indictment, information, or criminal complaint is pending and to the prosecuting official charged with the duty of prosecuting it.â Â§ 16-14-102(1). But while the Act requires prisoners to address their requests to the court and the prosecutor, it does not contemplate them actually sending such requests to those parties directly. Rather, the UMDDA provides that any request âshall be delivered to the superintendent where the prisoner is confined.â Â§ 16-14-103(1), C.R.S. (2014). The superintendent must then send a registered copy of the prisonerâs request to both the court and the prosecutor. Â§ 16-14-103(1)(b). Conforming with the Actâs requirements in this manner is known as âstrict compliance.â See People v. Fleming, 900 P.2d 19, 22 n.6 (Colo. 1995). Â¶24Â Â Â Â Strict compliance, however, is not the only manner by which a prisoner can invoke his right to speedy disposition under the UMDDA. That is, even when a prisoner fails to send his request to the superintendentâand thus fails to strictly comply with the Actâwe have determined that he nevertheless invokes his rights under the UMDDA if (1) his request substantially complies with the Actâs requirements, and (2) the prosecution receives âactual noticeâ of the request. See Mascarenas, 666 P.2d at 106. 6 The first element is not at issue in this case, as it is undisputed thatÂ McKimmyâs separate lettersâeach of which âformally request[ed] protection under the Uniform Mandatory Disposition of Detainers Actâ and included an accompanying citation to section 16-14-102 of the Colorado Revised Statutesâall substantially complied with the Act. See People v. Campbell, 742 P.2d 302, 310 (Colo. 1987) (holding that a letter that made âno mention of the [UMDDA] by name or statutory citationâ but âsimply [made] a âdemand for trialâ and for a âspeedy trialââ was âtoo indefinite to constitute a request for disposition of the defendantâs untried [charge] under the [UMDDA],â whereas a different letter that âwas couched in terms of a motion to dismiss for failure to have complied with the âUNIFORM MANDATORY DISPOSITION OF DETAINERS ACT, found in Article 14 of the Colorado Revised Statutes,â . . . sufficiently identified the Act to constitute a requestâ). But substantial compliance alone is insufficient to satisfactorily invoke a prisonerâs UMDDA rights. In addition, the prosecution must receive âactual noticeâ of the prisonerâs request. Accordingly, we now turn to the issue squarely before us in this case: the proper definition of âactual noticeâ for purposes of substantial compliance under the UMDDA.
Â¶25Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â The parties advance dueling interpretations of the term âactual notice.â McKimmy argues that âactual noticeâ is satisfied under the Act whenever the prosecution receives a prisonerâs UMDDA request. The People counter that âactualÂ noticeâ equates to âactual knowledge,â meaning mere receipt of the request is insufficientârather, in the Peopleâs view, the prosecution must actually become aware of the letterâs contents for the letter to invoke the prisonerâs UMDDA rights. Â¶26Â Â Â Â Â To resolve this dispute, we first note that the doctrine of substantial compliance (plus notice) is not codified by statute; rather, it is judicially created. Therefore, we must examine the cases that gave birth to the doctrine. In Mascarenas, the defendant drafted a substantially compliant UMDDA request but never delivered it to the superintendent of the institution in which he was confined. 666 P.2d at 106. Instead, he mailed the request to the trial court, which immediately forwarded it to the prosecution and âissued an order directing the prosecution âto take appropriate steps to bring this defendant to trial.ââ Id. at 105. Because the prosecution failed to do so within the UMDDAâs deadline, the trial court granted the defendantâs motion to dismiss. Id. In affirming the trial courtâs dismissal, we determined that even though the defendant failed to strictly comply with the Act, he nevertheless invoked its protections. Id. at 106. Specifically, we noted that it was âapparent that the prosecutors . . . had actual notice of [the defendantâs] attempt to invoke the Act,â and we thus held that â[w]here a prisoner has substantially complied with the provisions of the Act and the prosecution has actual notice of the prisonerâs request,â his UMDDA request is operative. Id. Â¶27Â Â Â Â Â Notably, the defendant in that case also drafted an analogous UMDDA request regarding an untried charge in a different county, and he again mailed this request directly to that countyâs trial court. Id. at 105. Unlike the first trial court, however, the second court never forwarded the request to the prosecution, meaning ânotice was notÂ given until the day of the trial.â Id. at 106. We held that the defendantâs âminimal attemptsâ to invoke the Act were ineffectual. Id. In support, we noted that the trial court conducted seven hearings after the defendant mailed his request, but the defendant never mentioned the Act at any of those hearings. Id. Therefore, because the defendant âcould have easily cured any defects in his requestâ but failed to do so, his second letter did not function to invoke his UMDDA rights. Id. at 107. Â¶28Â Â Â Four years later, we again tackled the concept of substantial compliance plus notice in Campbell. In that case, the defendant sent a detailed UMDDA request to the chief judge of the district in which he was being held. 742 P.2d at 303. The trial court received the request and then mailed a copy to the prosecution, but â[n]o action was taken to bring the matter to trial.â Id. at 303, 310. In affirming the trial courtâs dismissal, we rejected the Peopleâs argument that the defendant failed to properly notify the prosecution, stating that the prosecutionâs receipt of the UMDDA request from the court âfulfilled the statutory purpose of giving notice to the prosecuting official and substantially complied with that requirement of the . . . Act.â Id. at 310. Â¶29Â Â Â Of course, neither Mascarenas nor Campbell addressed the precise situation presented in this case, in which the prosecution received the defendantâs letter but did not become aware of its contents. Furthermore, neither decision explicitly used the term âknowledge,â instead simply recognizing that the prosecution received ânoticeâ of the defendantâs request once the trial court forwarded it. 7 But the two cases nonethelessÂ imply that if a prisoner wishes to invoke his UMDDA rights via substantial compliance plus notice, his request only becomes effective once the prosecution actually becomes aware of it. Indeed, in Mascarenas, the defendantâs first request was operative because the prosecution gained knowledge of it; in contrast, the second was inoperative because the prosecution never knew it even existed. See 666 P.2d at 106. Thus, in the context of the doctrine of substantial compliance under the UMDDA, the concepts of âactual noticeâ and âactual knowledgeâ are inextricable. Â¶30Â Â Â Â Equating âactual noticeâ with âactual knowledgeâ also harmonizes with one of the UMDDAâs underlying purposes, which is to guarantee prisonersâ constitutional rights to speedy trial. See Higinbotham, 712 P.2d at 996. Applying this rationale to our substantial compliance precedent, logic dictates that the prosecution can only effectuate the Actâs goal of ensuring speedy trials if it gains actual knowledge of a defendantâs UMDDA request. At its core, the Act equips prisoners with a shield to protect them from being confined in jail indefinitely while awaiting trial; it does not arm them with a sword that they can wield to escape trial altogether. Certainly, the Act requires the court and the prosecution to safeguard a defendantâs UMDDA rights once he actuallyÂ invokes them. But the prosecution cannot be expected to affirmatively enforce a defendantâs UMDDA request under substantial compliance if it never learns of the request in the first place. Â¶31Â Â Â Â McKimmy nevertheless contends that the absence of the term âknowledgeâ in Mascarenas and Campbell is dispositive, going so far as to suggest that âColorado precedent expressly rejects the [Peopleâs] argument that actual knowledge is required.â Answer Brief at 15. Instead, in McKimmyâs view, the two cases illustrate that actual notice is satisfied once a UMDDA request is sent to the prosecution, regardless of who sends it. Id. (âAccording to the Courtâs holdings in these cases, a defendantâs burden to provide notice is met so long as a UMDDA request is sent to the prosecution by either the defendant or the court or a superintendent, or arguably anyone.â (emphasis added)). Â¶32Â Â Â Â We are unpersuaded. To begin with, McKimmyâs assertion that Mascarenas and Campbell âexpressly reject[]â the requirement of actual knowledge is simply untrue. We may not have affirmatively equated âactual noticeâ with âactual knowledgeâ in those cases, but we by no means rejected that equation, expressly or otherwise. Moreover, we do not construe our case law to support the far-reaching notion that any personâeven one unaffiliated with the litigationâcan satisfy the requirement of actual notice on the defendantâs behalf simply by sending his UMDDA request to the prosecution. Rather, Mascarenas and Campbell stand for the narrower, self-evident proposition that when the court issues a directive to the prosecution regarding the defendantâs UMDDA request, the prosecution must comply. Cf. People v. Thurman,Â 787 P.2d 646, 655 (Colo. 1990) (recognizing that a trial court can impose sanctions against the prosecution for its âwillful refusalâ to comply with a disclosure order). Thus, once the court in Mascarenas forwarded the defendantâs UMDDA request to the prosecution and explicitly ordered it to âtake appropriate steps to bring this defendant to trial,â 666 P.2d at 105, the prosecution gained actual knowledge of the request. It was this element of knowledgeânot the mere fact that the prosecution received the requestâthat operated to invoke the defendantâs UMDDA rights. Â¶33Â Â Â McKimmy argues that requiring him to divine whether the prosecution gained actual knowledge of his request would impose an impossible burden upon him. Essentially, he contends that he did everything he possibly could to invoke his UMDDA rights. The record, however, refutes this contention. Not only did McKimmy actively conceal his UMDDA requests from his own counsel, but he then compounded his deception by refusing to mention the UMDDA during the numerous hearings at which he voiced generalized concerns regarding âspeedy trial.â Indeed, even when the judge at the conflict hearing pressed him for specifics regarding his alleged âjurisdictional groundsâ for dismissal, McKimmyâs responses were vague and evasive. In essence, McKimmy attempted to use his UMDDA requests to get his charges dismissed, not to get them tried. His behavior in this regard bears a striking similarity to that of the defendant in Mascarenas, who neglected to mention his UMDDA request during seven separate hearings. Id. at 106. Â¶34Â Â Â Moreover, McKimmyâs assertion that he had no other avenue to invoke his UMDDA rights is patently false. McKimmy need not have relied on the prosecution toÂ gain knowledge of his requests; instead, he could have simply delivered his request to the superintendent and thus strictly complied with the statute, thereby obviating the actual notice requirement. But he elected to pursue the path of substantial compliance, a path that plainly requires notice. We reiterate that this alternative method of invoking oneâs UMDDA rights is a judicially created mechanismâthe UMDDA does not authorize it at all. As such, we must be wary of expanding too broadly the manner in which prisoners can invoke their rights under the Act without actually complying with the statute. See City of Aurora ex rel. Util. Enter. v. Colo. State Engâr, 105 P.3d 595, 608 (Colo. 2005) (âExceptions to the general laws should be narrowly construed. The legislature, not the court, should expand these exceptions if desirable.â (citation omitted)). Â¶35Â Â Â Â In spite of this, McKimmy argues that in his case, substantial compliance was not an alternative mechanism but was in fact the only available method by which he could invoke his UMDDA rights. Specifically, McKimmy claims that because he was incarcerated in the Jefferson County Jail rather than the Department of Corrections (âDOCâ), he was literally incapable of strictly complying with the UMDDA, as no DOC superintendent existed to take receipt of his request. See Â§ 16-14-103(1) (providing that any UMDDA request âshall be delivered to the superintendent where the prisoner is confinedâ). But we have repeatedly held that parolees incarcerated in county jail remain in custody of the DOC. See, e.g., People v. Trancoso, 776 P.2d 374, 380 n.8 (Colo. 1989) (âAlthough [the defendant] was physically confined at the El Paso County Jail at the time he delivered his request to the superintendent, he was in the legal custody ofÂ the department of corrections at that time because he was a parolee at the time of his arrest.â); Campbell, 742 P.2d at 309 (â[E]ven when in county jail [the parolee-defendant] was in the custody of the department of corrections within the meaning of [the UMDDA].â). Indeed, in Trancoso, the defendant sent a letter to the superintendent of the Territorial Correctional Facility in CaÃ±on City while he was incarcerated in the El Paso County Jail, and we held that this letter sufficed to invoke his UMDDA rights. 776 P.2d at 376, 379. Because the same circumstances apply to McKimmyâs case, his argument is without merit. Â¶36Â Â Â Â Finally, we reject McKimmyâs argument that requiring actual knowledge is âunfair, unjust, and inconsistent with the purpose of the UMDDA.â Answer Brief at 19. In equating ânoticeâ with âknowledgeâ under the Act, we are hardly crippling the alternative method of substantial compliance entirely. Instead, we are simply explicating what we have always implied: that if a prisoner attempts to invoke his UMDDA rights in a matter not authorized by the Act, the prosecution must become aware of that attempt. Certainly, prosecutors cannot bury their heads in the sand and prevent prisoners from invoking their UMDDA rights through willful ignorance. But bad-faith misconduct differs from honest mistake, and McKimmy does not allege prosecutorial malfeasance here, as it is undisputed that the prosecutor simply failed to take notice of McKimmyâs 2007 pro-se letters. We do not condone the prosecutionâs carelessness, but we cannot conclude that its inattention rendered the requests operative under the Act. Again, if McKimmy wished to ensure that the prosecution was aware of his requests, he could have informed his own counsel of the issue orÂ raised it in open court. Because he chose not to take such actions, the prosecution did not gain actual knowledge of the 2007 requests until well after it received them. Â¶37Â Â Â Accordingly, we hold that for the purposes of substantial compliance with the UMDDA, âactual noticeâ means âactual knowledge.â Therefore, when a prisoner fails to strictly comply with the UMDDA, he nevertheless invokes his rights under the Act if (1) his request substantially complies with the Actâs requirements, and (2) the prosecution receives actual noticeâthat is, actual knowledgeâof the request. With this understanding of the Act in mind, we now address whether any UMDDA violations occurred in McKimmyâs four cases.
Â¶38Â Â Â As we have illustrated, once a prisoner invokes his UMDDA rightsâwhether through strict compliance or substantial compliance plus noticeâhe must be brought to trial within 182 days. Â§ 16-14-104(1). Here, McKimmy sent substantially compliant requests in four different cases. Ideally, if the record definitively established when the prosecution gained actual notice (that is, actual knowledge) of these separate requestsâ and, thus, when the proverbial UMDDA clock began to run in each caseâwe could calculate whether McKimmyâs trials were held within the 180-day deadline. 8 Unfortunately, the convoluted record in this case renders such a task impossible. We simply cannot determine, with any degree of confidence, when the prosecution gainedÂ actual knowledge of McKimmyâs particular UMDDA request in each case. Therefore, we must remand to the trial court to conduct further fact-finding on this issue. Â¶39Â Â Â We also note that the overarching issue for the trial court to resolve on remand remains whether any UMDDA violations occurred. Thus, in addition to determining when McKimmy invoked his UMDDA rights (i.e., when the prosecution gained actual knowledge of his respective requests) and counting forward 180 days from that point, the trial court may also need to address whether McKimmy waived those rights. The court of appeals performed a detailed analysis in this regard, holding that (1) McKimmy never expressly waived his UMDDA rights, and (2) to the extent that McKimmyâs behavior tolled the Actâs 180-day deadline, the trial court nevertheless failed to hold his trials within the deadline. McKimmy, slip op. at 13â17. But because the court of appeals declined to address the issue of actual notice, it predicated its analysis on the notion that McKimmy invoked his UMDDA rights as soon as the prosecution received his letters. Id. at 12 (â[B]ecause McKimmy substantially complied with the UMDDA and the prosecution conceded it had actual notice of his requests, we conclude that the UMDDA deadline began to run on the dates that the prosecution admitted it received actual notice of the requests.â). As we have illustrated, this was incorrect. Supra, Â¶Â¶ 17â18. Because the issue of waiver and/or tolling is not before us, we express no opinion on the matter other than to point out that the issue may be relevant to the trial courtâs ultimate analysis on remand.Â