Court Opinion

ID: 9789245
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:32:02.595553+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:20.901413
License: Public Domain

Justice COATS,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Although I agree that the defendant's admission to a probation violation was not a "Blakely-compliant" fact, capable of justifying a sentence beyond the statutory maximum or, as we have held with regard to our own felony sentencing scheme, see Lopez v. People, 118 P.3d 713, 730 (Colo.2005), increasing the statutory maximum sentence to include the extraordinarily aggravated range; I do not agree (for both statutory and constitutional reasons) that, upon resentencing, an intervening conviction could subject the defendant to a sentence greater than that which could originally have been imposed. I therefore dissent from the majority's advice concerning resentencing.
In reliance on Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004), we have held that although a criminal defendant is entitled to have any fact that increases his penalty beyond the prescribed statutory maximum for the offense of which he is convicted submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt, that entitlement does not include the fact of a prior conviction. Lopes, 113 P.3d at 730. Although the continued viability of this exemption for prior convictions is highly suspect, see Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 26 n. 5, 125 S.Ct. 1254, 161 L.Ed.2d 205 (2005); Shepard, 544 U.S. at 27-28, 125 S.Ct. 1254 (Thomas, J., concurring in part); Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 520-21, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000) (Thomas, J., concurring), it has not yet been overruled. It seems clear to me, however, that the exemption, even as announced in Apprendi? and Blakely, was never intended to sanction enhancing sentences in reliance upon convictions that post-date the jury verdict for which the defendant is currently being sentenced.
In Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224, 118 S.Ct. 1219, 140 L.Ed.2d 350 (1998), the Supreme Court, rather than simply noting a possible exception for prior convictions, actually upheld a sentence enhanced on the basis of prior convictions not alleged in the indictment. In doing so, the Court applied the term "prior conviction" to convie-tions that were not only complete before the defendant's sentencing for unlawfully reentering this country, but were in fact the impetus for his deportation in the first place. Id. at 226-27, 118 S.Ct. 1219. In subsequent ly explaining why it treated prior convictions as being different from other sentencing facts requiring jury findings, the Court emphasized its heavy reliance on the fact that recidivism was a traditional basis for increasing sentences. Id. at 248, 118 S.Ct. 1219. See Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 487-89, 120 S.Ct. 2348; see also Jones v. United States, 526 U.S. 227, 249, 119 S.Ct. 1215, 143 L.Ed.2d 311 (1999).
In this jurisdiction, we have long acknowledged traditional principles of criminal responsibility prohibiting the state from converting a less serious charge into a more serious one on the basis of something occurring after the charge. Largely in reliance on this very principle, we long ago concluded that our own habitual criminal statute did not permit an enhanced sentence on the basis of a conviction incurred after commission of the offense for which the defendant was being sentenced. See People v. Nees, 200 Colo. 392, 396, 615 P.2d 690, 693 (1980).
Unlike so-called "real offense" sentencing, see Williams v. New York, 337 U.S. 241, 69 S.Ct. 1079, 98 L.Ed. 1337 (1949); see generalty, 5 LaFave et al., Criminal Procedure § 26. 4(b) (2d ed. 1999 & Supp.2004), which would permit consideration of any unrelated criminal, and even non-eriminal, conduct in imposing a sentence within an allowable range, the majority would permit a conviction not yet in existence to expand the sentencing range, in effect allowing a conviction for an offense greater than the one to which the defendant actually pled. Apparently because they have necessarily been established through procedures satisfying fair notice, reasonable doubt, and jury trial guarantees, *1240see Jones, 526 U.S. at 249, 119 S.Ct. 1215, the Supreme Court so far continues to exempt prior convictions from its jury-finding requirement, but I do not believe it has ever endorsed enhanced sentencing on the basis of facts (however well established) occurring after the defendant's conviction. This is especially true with regard to guilty pleas, which require an effective waiver of a defendant's trial rights, with an understanding of the penalties to which he subjects himself. See In re Lopez, 148 P.3d 121 (Colo.2006).
If it were not clear enough, however, that Supreme Court jurisprudence would not sanction an increased penalty range as the result of facts occurring after the defendant's guilty plea, the General Assembly has limited the sentencing options available upon revocation of probation. Section 16-11-206, C.R.S. (2008), expressly permits a revoked probationer to be sentenced to any sentence "which might originally have been imposed," but no more. In the absence of a waiver or some Blakely-compliant or Blakely-exempt fact expanding the statutory maximum to include the extraordinarily aggravated range, by at least the time of the defendant's sentence to probation, it seems clear that a sentence in that range could not have originally been imposed.
Because I believe that a conviction sustained after the defendant was originally sentenced cannot statutorily or constitutionally support a sentence beyond the statutory maximum on resentencing, I respectfully dissent from that portion of the majority opinion.