Court Opinion

ID: 9783364
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 19:44:38.035283+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:22.763057
License: Public Domain

Justice COATS,
concurring in the judgment.
Although I too believe the extended limitations period of HB 02-1396 can apply only to offenses committed on or after passage of the act, I do not consider it necessary to rely on a rule of lenity to reach that result. In fact, I believe that result is dictated by the language of the act itself. I therefore concur only in the judgment of the court.
Despite being contingent upon certain general fund savings generated by other legisla*260tion, the effective date of the act is in no way ambiguous. The effective date clause expressly limits the applicability of the entire act to offenses committed on or after the date of its passage. While the substantive statutes amended by HB 02-1396 would extend with equal clarity the limitations period for prosecution of specified sexual offenses, not only for new offenses but for all such offenses for which the existing statute of limitations had not yet run, these conflicting provisions do not render the effective date clause ambiguous.
The legislature has anticipated that it might pass irreconcilable statutes at either the same or different sessions, and in that event it makes clear its intention that the prevailing statute be the one with the later effective date, or in the case of identical effective dates, the statute enacted more recently. See § 2-4-206, C.R.S. (2008). Although the legislature has not expressly provided for a conflict between an act's substantive provisions and effective date clause, its preference for recency is clear, and as a simple matter of logic, a particular provision of a legislative enactment cannot apply more broadly than the enactment of which it is a part. Especially where, as here, the particular substantive provision does not directly countermand the act's applicability clause so as to render it completely nugatory, but merely purports to apply itself to an even broader class of cases, I believe the subsequent decision to limit the applicability of the entire enactment necessarily fixes an outer limit on the applicability of any of its parts.
From the legislature's concern for the act's immediate fiscal impact, evident in the contingent construction of the effective date clause itself, it seems clear that the inclusion of standard applicability language, typical of most criminal statutes, was a mistake. Nevertheless, I do not believe the language chosen by the legislature to limit the applicability of the act as a whole is susceptible of any other reasonable interpretation. In the absence of an actual constitutional violation, I do not consider it to be within the province of the courts to excise clear statutory language, even in the service of implementing an equally clear, but inadequately expressed, legislative intent.
Because I believe the applicability of HB 02-1396 is controlled by the language of the act itself, I find it unnecessary to resort to the rule of lenity. I therefore concur only in the judgment of the court.