Editor’s Note: Law Week Colorado edits court opinion summaries for style and, when necessary, length.
Snedeker v. People
Bradford Snedeker was convicted of various fraud and theft charges in two separate Boulder County District Court cases. In the first case, the district court sentenced Snedeker to a four-year prison term on two securities fraud counts, along with a consecutive one-year term of work release plus 20 years of economic crimes probation on two theft counts. In the second case, the district court sentenced Snedeker to 15 years of economic crimes probation for a theft conviction to run concurrently with the fraud case sentence.
In 2019, after Snedeker had completed the prison term of his fraud case sentence and was serving probation, the Colorado Supreme Court announced Allman v. People, in which it held that a court may not sentence a defendant to imprisonment for one offense and probation for a different offense in the same case.
The prosecution then moved to revoke Snedeker’s probation, at which point he argued that his sentences were illegal under Allman. The district court recognized that Snedeker’s fraud case sentence was illegal and it ordered resentencing. But the court found that Allman didn’t apply to sentences in separate cases, such as Snedeker’s theft case.
Ultimately, the court resentenced Snedeker to concurrent sentences of prison in the theft case and probation in the fraud case.
A division of the Colorado Court of Appeals reviewed the fraud case and affirmed the district court’s resentencing decision. Snedeker then petitioned the Colorado Supreme Court for review.
Snedeker argued that when a court vacates a defendant’s prison-plus-probation sentence to comply with Allman and the defendant has already served the prison portion of the sentence, a resentencing that reimposes the original probationary sentence still violates Allman; and when a court imposes concurrent prison and probationary sentences at a joint sentencing hearing for charges stemming from separate cases, this also violates Allman.
The state Supreme Court first held that when a sentence is illegal under Allman and a defendant has already served the prison portion of the sentence, the court has the authority to reimpose a probationary term because probation remains a legal sentencing option at resentencing. It also concluded that it was permissible for the district court to resentence Snedeker to 20 years of probation with credit for four years of time served.
Next, it held that it doesn’t violate Allman for a court to sentence a defendant to imprisonment in one case and probation in a separate case.
The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed both the appeals court’s judgment that the district court’s sentence was proper in the fraud case and the district court’s resentencing in the theft case.
In re People v. Silva-Jaquez
Roberto Silva-Jaquez petitioned the Colorado Supreme Court for relief from the district court’s postconviction order directing him to make certain disclosures to the prosecution regarding an expert witness he endorsed in connection with a criminal procedure Rule 35(c) ineffective assistance of counsel claim. Although the postconviction court acknowledged its lack of authority under Rule 16 to order discovery in a postconviction proceeding, it nonetheless believed that it could rely on its “inherent authority to manage its cases” to order Silva-Jaquez to provide discovery consistent with, and modeled after that same rule.
The Colorado Supreme Court held that a trial court may not rely on its inherent authority to order discovery in a postconviction proceeding. It noted that in Colorado, a trial court has no freestanding authority to order discovery absent authorization by a constitutional provision, statute or rule.
The court made absolute the order to show cause and remanded the case to the postconviction court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.