Opinion ID: 2585534
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Equal Protection Under the Colorado Constitution

Text: A statute is presumed to be constitutional and Campbell has the burden to prove the statute's unconstitutionality beyond a reasonable doubt. Stewart, 55 P.3d at 115. The Due Process Clause of the Colorado Constitution guarantees equal protection of the laws. Colo. Const., art. II, sec. 25. Unequal treatment of similarly situated persons is prohibited. People v. Cagle, 751 P.2d 614, 619 (Colo.1988). Under Colorado's equal protection guarantee, a person is denied equal protection when two criminal statutes proscribe different penalties for identical conduct and a person is convicted and sentenced under the statute with the harsher penalty, unless there are reasonable differences between the proscribed behavior and the differences are both real in fact and reasonably related to the general purposes of the legislation. Stewart, 55 P.3d at 114. A single act may violate more than one criminal statute without violating the equal protection guarantee. Id.; Cagle, 751 P.2d at 619. Our equal protection jurisprudence under Colorado law prohibits the General Assembly from providing the prosecution with complete unrestrained discretion in the charging decision. The General Assembly is restrained from allowing the prosecutor to choose between provisions that punish identical conduct by different penalties. Colorado jurisprudence holds that equal protection is satisfied when the two statutes at issue proscribe different conduct.