19CA1397 Peo v Roberts 11-24-2021
COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS
Court of Appeals No. 19CA1397
Arapahoe County District Court No. 17CR1773
Honorable Darren L. Vahle, Judge
The People of the State of Colorado,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
Keith Alfonzo Roberts,
Defendant-Appellant.
ORDER VACATED
Division IV
Opinion by JUDGE J. JONES
Freyre and Tow, JJ., concur
NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e)
Announced November 24, 2021
Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Patrick A. Withers, Assistant Attorney
General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee
Megan A. Ring, Colorado State Public Defender, Chelsea E. Mowrer, Deputy
State Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant
1
¶ 1 Defendant, Keith Alfonzo Roberts, appeals the district court’s
order imposing restitution. Applying People v. Weeks, 2021 CO 75,
we conclude that the prosecution must move for restitution before
or at the sentencing hearing and that where, as in this case, the
prosecution has the means to determine the amount of restitution
and the identities of the victims before the court enters the order of
conviction, under section 18-1.3-603(2), C.R.S. 2021, the
prosecution must present that information to the court before the
entry of the order of conviction. If the prosecution doesn’t do either
of these things, the right to seek restitution is lost. Because the
prosecution in this case did not file a motion for restitution before
or at the sentencing hearing and had the information supporting an
amount of restitution before the order of conviction was entered,
but did not timely submit it to the court, the court erred by giving
the prosecution an extension of time to submit a request for
restitution. We therefore vacate the restitution order.
I. Background
¶ 2 A jury found Roberts guilty of multiple charges arising from a
high-speed highway chase that ended when Roberts crashed his car
into a pursuing police officer’s patrol car.
2
¶ 3 Shortly before the trial, in January 2018, the City and County
of Denver Risk Management Department submitted to the
prosecution a victim impact statement containing restitution
information. It sought restitution of $24,633.46 to cover injuries to
two police officers and damage to two police cars. The prosecution
didn’t submit a restitution request to the court prior to or at the
sentencing hearing. Nonetheless, at the sentencing hearing, held in
March 2018, the district court concluded, sua sponte, that because
the victims had suffered a pecuniary loss, “the People shall have 91
days from [the date of sentencing] to file a motion for restitution.”
¶ 4 The prosecution filed a motion for restitution within ninety-
one days after the sentencing hearing, seeking $24,633.46 in
restitution, attaching the victim impact statement that had been
submitted to it in January 2018.
¶ 5 Due to an apparent clerical error, the district court didn’t
address the prosecution’s restitution request until October 2018,
when it granted the defense thirty-five days to respond to the
motion. The defense responded, objecting on timeliness grounds,
arguing that (1) the prosecution had failed to timely present the
restitution information that had been made available to it before
3
entry of the order of conviction and (2) more than ninety-one days
had passed since the entry of the order of conviction, and there was
no good cause for the additional delay. The court scheduled a
hearing on the matter for April 2019 that was later rescheduled for
June 2019.
¶ 6 At the hearing, the prosecution amended its restitution
request to $20,580.13 in response to Roberts’ objection to the
inclusion of $4,053.31 for a collection fee.
1
Roberts renewed his
timeliness arguments.
¶ 7 The district court concluded that the prosecution’s restitution
request was timely because the prosecution had filed the motion for
restitution within ninety-one days of the order of conviction. The
court ordered Roberts to pay $20,580.13 in restitution.
II. Discussion
¶ 8 Roberts contends that the district court lacked the authority
to impose restitution because (1) the prosecution possessed the
requisite restitution information two months before the entry of the
order of conviction but didn’t present that information to the court
1
The prosecution’s calculation (subtracting $4,053.31 from
$24,633.46) was off by two cents.
4
before or at the sentencing hearing and (2) the district court
imposed restitution more than ninety-one days after the order of
conviction in the absence of good cause for extending the statutory
ninety-one-day deadline. Because we agree with Roberts’ first
contention, we don’t need to address his second.
2
Accordingly, we
vacate the order of restitution.
A. Standard of Review
¶ 9 Roberts’ contention calls for us to interpret the restitution
statute, section 18-1.3-603. That presents a legal issue that we
review de novo. Weeks, ¶ 24.
B. Applicable Law
¶ 10 The restitution statute provides, in pertinent part, as follows:
(1) Every order of conviction of a felony . . .
shall include consideration of restitution.
Each such order shall include one or more of
the following:
(a) An order of a specific amount of restitution
be paid by the defendant;
(b) An order that the defendant is obligated to
pay restitution, but that the specific amount of
restitution shall be determined within the
ninety-one days immediately following the
2
We observe, however, that Roberts’ second contention would
appear meritorious in light of People v. Weeks, 2021 CO 75.
5
order of conviction, unless good cause is
shown for extending the time period by which
the restitution amount shall be determined;
(c) An order, in addition to or in place of a
specific amount of restitution, that the
defendant pay restitution covering the actual
costs of specific future treatment of any victim
of the crime; or
(d) Contain a specific finding that no victim of
the crime suffered a pecuniary loss and
therefore no order for the payment of
restitution is being entered.
(2) The court shall base its order for restitution
upon information presented to the court by the
prosecuting attorney, who shall compile such
information through victim impact statements
or other means to determine the amount of
restitution and the identities of the victims.
Further, the prosecuting attorney shall present
this information to the court prior to the order of
conviction or within ninety-one days, if it is not
available prior to the order of conviction. The
court may extend this date if it finds that there
are extenuating circumstances affecting the
prosecuting attorney’s ability to determine
restitution.
§ 18-1.3-603 (emphasis added). The result in this case turns on
our interpretation of the italicized portion of the statute.
¶ 11 Our goal in interpreting any statute is to ascertain and give
effect to the General Assembly’s intent. People v. Vidauri, 2021 CO
25, ¶ 11. To do so, we look first to the statute’s language. Mosley
6
v. People, 2017 CO 20, ¶ 16. But we don’t consider the statute’s
words or phrases in isolation. Rather, we consider the relevant
statutory text as a whole, interpreting it in a way that gives
consistent, harmonious, and sensible effect to all its parts. Id. If,
after doing all this, we conclude that the “statute is clear and
unambiguous, we give effect to its plain meaning and look no
further.” Cowen v. People, 2018 CO 96, ¶ 12; see § 2-4-203, C.R.S.
2021.
C. Analysis
¶ 12 The supreme court in Weeks largely did our work for us. In
that case, the court held, among other things, that (1) the
prosecution must move for restitution before or during the
sentencing hearing; (2) the prosecution must present the
information supporting the motion (i.e., information supporting a
proposed amount of restitution) before the order of conviction is
entered if it is then available; and (3) if, but only if, that information
is not then available, the prosecution may submit it no later than
ninety-one days after the entry of the order of conviction. Weeks,
¶¶ 30-31, 40. Any failure to comply with these deadlines means the
court may not award restitution. See id. at ¶¶ 7, 45; see also Meza
7
v. People, 2018 CO 23, ¶ 11 (“[T]he statute as a whole necessarily
implies that . . . a postponement will be permitted only if the
required information is not available before entry of judgment.”
(citing Fierro v. People, 206 P.3d 460, 461 (Colo. 2009))).
¶ 13 As now relevant, under Weeks, the prosecution in this case
was required to move for restitution before or at sentencing. It
didn’t. It is also undisputed that the prosecution had the means to
determine the amount of restitution and identify the victims before
the entry of the order of conviction. The restitution statute
therefore required it to present that information to the court before
then. It didn’t. Because the prosecution didn’t comply with these
statutory deadlines, it lost the opportunity to seek restitution.
¶ 14 The People argue, however, that the district court has the
discretion to grant additional time for the prosecution to seek
restitution in these circumstances, even if the prosecution isn’t
entitled to more time, because (1) the court has the inherent power
to manage its docket and (2) the court isn’t deprived of the ability to
award restitution even if the prosecution misses a deadline. These
arguments are foreclosed by Weeks.
8
III. Conclusion
¶ 15 The restitution order is vacated.
JUDGE FREYRE and JUDGE TOW concur.