Court Opinion

ID: 9785607
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 22:14:00.325243+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:30.420420
License: Public Domain

Justice MARTINEZ,
dissenting.
I.
The majority holds that when the prosecution conditionally withdraws a petition to revoke a deferred judgment agreement in exchange for extending the deferred judgment beyond the maximum four-year period established by section 18-1.3-102(1), C.R.S. (2004), and the condition upon which the withdrawal was made fails, the proper resolution is to reinstate the petition to revoke and proceed to determine if the defendant breached the terms of the original deferred judgment agreement. The majority does so without regard for when the court reinstates the withdrawn petition and without providing a remedy for the trial court’s improper exercise of authority when it extended the deferred judgment beyond the maximum four-year period. As such, the majority, in effect, tacitly endorses the use of conditional deferred judgment agreements that exceed the statutory four-year limit established by the General Assembly in section 18-1.3-102(1). Because the majority’s resolution contravenes section 18-1.3-102(1) by expanding the authority of the trial court to permit deferred judgment agreements that circumvent the maximum four-year period, I respectfully dissent.
II.
Criminal sentencing is traditionally a judicial function; however, it is not an unlimited power or within the sole province of the judiciary. People v. Pate, 878 P.2d 685, 694 (Colo.1994). Instead, the General Assembly has the inherent power to prescribe punishment for crimes and to limit the court’s sentencing authority. See id. (sentences imposed by the judiciary must fall within the “limits determined by the General Assembly”). Relevant in this case is the authority conferred on the judiciary by the General Assembly under Colorado’s deferred judgment statute.
Colorado’s deferred judgment statute provides courts limited authority to continue cases and to defer judgment and sentencing:
*766In any case in which the defendant has entered a plea of guilty, the court accepting the plea has the power ... to continue the case for a period not to exceed four years from the date of entry of a plea to a felony ... for the purpose of entering judgment and sentence upon such plea of guilty.
§ 18-1.3-102(1) (emphasis added). Courts are further authorized by the statute to “place the defendant under the supervision of the probation department” during the period of deferment, id., under stipulations and conditions “similar in all respects to conditions permitted as part of probation.” § 18-1.3-102(2). Section 18-1.3-102(1) only provides for one circumstance where the court has the authority to extend the period of deferment beyond four years:
[In felony cases, the four-year period] may be extended for an additional time up to one hundred eighty days if the failure to pay restitution is the sole condition of supervision which has not been fulfilled, because of inability to pay, aiid the defendant has shown a future ability to pay.
Section 18-1.3-102(2) sets forth the procedure for entering into a deferred judgment agreement as well as the mechanism for revoking the agreement when a defendant violates the conditions of agreement during the period of deferral. This section does not provide any additional means for extending a deferred judgment beyond the four-year period after a defendant enters a guilty plea.
Thus, the one thing that is clear from the plain language of the Colorado’s deferred judgment statute is that trial courts only have the authority to continue a case as part of a deferred judgment agreement for a maximum of four years. Only where the case involves the defendant’s failure to pay the agreed-upon restitution does a court have the authority to extend the period of deferment beyond four years.
Accordingly, it is clear in this ease that the trial court exceeded its authority when it continued the case beyond the four-year period that began on the date Simonds entered his guilty plea. Simonds entered his guilty plea as part of the original deferred judgment agreement on June 30, 1997, and, therefore, the maximum four-year period of deferment expired on June 30, 2001. The trial court, however, accepted a second deferred judgment agreement and continued the case for a new four-year period set to expire in January 2005. As such, the trial court extended the deferred judgment agreement more than three years beyond the time period authorized by the General Assembly in section 18-1.3-102.
On appeal before this court, the parties do not dispute that the second deferred judgment agreement that continued the case beyond the four-year period was an illegal agreement. In fact, the contested issue in this ease-the issue for which we granted certiorari-contemplates the proper remedy for the trial court’s improper exercise of authority.2 The majority, nevertheless, neither resolves this issue nor provides a remedy for this improper exercise of authority, but instead appears to enforce the illegal agreement on its terms.
The majority begins its analysis by focusing on the deadline set by section 18-1.3-102(2) for filing a petition to revoke a deferred judgment agreement. Maj. op. at 764. The majority agrees with the trial court that the prosecution timely filed its petition to revoke the deferred judgment and concludes that the prosecution “conditionally” withdrew the petition in exchange for Simonds beginning a new four-year period of deferral. Id. at 764-65. Because the withdrawal of the petition was conditioned upon a new four-year’ period of probation which was prohibited by statute, the majority finds the petition was never actually withdrawn. Id. at 764-65. As a result, the majority holds that because the petition to revoke was filed before the original four-year period ended, the trial court could proceed on the petition well beyond the original four-year period and deter*767mine if Simonds breached the original deferred judgment agreement. Id. at 765.
By focusing on the filing deadline and looking to the terms of (what the majority characterizes as) the conditional deferred judgment agreement, th.e majority has, in effect, tacitly approved the future use of conditional deferred judgment agreements that extend the period of deferment beyond the four-year maximum established by section 18-1.3-102(1). That is, the majority does not provide a remedy for the trial court’s improper exercise of authority when it permitted an illegal deferred judgment agreement, but instead establishes that any prosecutor, defendant, or court may enter into agreements that extend beyond the maximum four-year period.
If a defendant enters into a conditional deferred judgment agreement that extends beyond four years and later objects to the extension or is accused of breaching the terms of the agreement, the majority-endorsed resolution is to enforce the terms of the conditional agreement by simply reinstating the “conditionally-withdrawn” petition to revoke and proceed accordingly. At the same time, nothing in the majority resolution condemns or calls into question the trial court’s exercise of authority to accept a deferred judgment agreement that exceeds the maximum four-year period where no party objects to the extension and a defendant successfully completes the terms of the deferred judgment extension. In doing so, the majority opens the door for courts to extend conditionally deferred judgments well beyond the four-year maximum provided that the petition to revoke the deferred judgment was filed during the original four-year period.
III.
Under the facts of this case as framed by the majority, the repercussions of enforcing the “conditional” deferred judgment agreement become somewhat obscured. The majority characterizes the agreement as conditional whereby the prosecution agreed to withdraw its petition to revoke upon condition that Simonds begin a new four-year period of deferral. Because the defendant later “demonstrated that the statute denied it the authority” to enter into a new agreement, the condition upon which the withdrawal of the petition was based “failed from the start.” Maj. op. at 765. The majority’s analysis of the second deferred judgment agreement appears to agree that section 18-1.3-102 prohibits deferred judgment agreements that extend beyond four years, but, as discussed above, the majority goes on to enforce the terms of the agreement anyway.
I find it more instructive to paint the second agreement and its conditions in a light that more readily reflects the intent of extending the deferment. In doing so, the effect of the majority’s holding becomes clear. For example, as in this case, where a prosecutor has filed a petition to revoke alleging that a defendant breached the terms of a deferred judgment agreement, a prosecutor might offer a defendant a new agreement for a period of time that exceeds the four-year maximum by three years. The prosecutor might agree to withdraw its petition to revoke on condition that the defendant complies with the terms of the new agreement and participates in a sex offender treatment program. As the majority holds today, if the defendant fails to continue in the sex offender treatment program-the condition upon which the extension was granted-courts are permitted to give effect to the second deferred judgment agreement despite its clear extension beyond the statutorily mandated maximum four-year period. In giving effect to agreement, the court must find that the condition upon which the prosecution withdrew its petition to revoke failed and the prosecution is entitled to proceed on the petition as though a second agreement never occurred. This, of course, wholly conflicts with the maximum four-year period set forth in section 18-1.3-102.
IV.
Because the majority fails to enforce the mandate imposed by Colorado’s deferred judgment statute-the maximum four-year period-and tacitly endorses future violations of this mandate, I respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to state that Justice BENDER joins in this dissent.

. We granted the prosecution’s petition for writ of certiorari on the following issue: "Whether the remedy for an agreement that calls for an illegal deferred judgment and sentence should be the same as the remedy for a plea agreement that calls for an illegal sentence (i.e., the parties are released from the agreement and returned to their status quo ante)."