Owens v. Williams
| Decision Date | 31 December 2020 |
| Docket Number | Court of Appeals No. 19CA0890 |
| Court | Colorado Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Nathanael E. OWENS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Dean WILLIAMS, Mary Carlson, and Scott Dauffenbach, Defendants-Appellees. |
Nathanael E. Owens, Pro Se
Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Nicole S. Gellar, First Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for Defendants-Appellees
Opinion by JUDGE J. JONES
¶ 1 Plaintiff, Nathanael E. Owens, is an inmate serving a lengthy sentence in the custody of the Colorado Department of Corrections (DOC) arising from convictions for three offenses. He sued employees of the DOC1 under C.R.C.P. 106(a)(2) seeking a writ of mandamus, claiming that the DOC has improperly calculated his parole eligibility date. The DOC moved to dismiss, and the district court granted its motion.
¶ 2 Ultimately, this case turns on whether the DOC can rely on section 17-22.5-403(2.5), C.R.S. 2020, to calculate Owens’ parole eligibility date as the date he will have served seventy-five percent of his entire composite sentence. Owens contends that because he wasn't convicted of a crime of violence, that provision doesn't apply. The provision that does apply, he says, is section 17-22.5-403(1), which sets forth the general rule that an inmate is eligible for parole after serving fifty percent of his sentence.
¶ 3 We conclude that the DOC doesn't have a clear duty to calculate Owens’ parole eligibility date in the way Owens requests. We agree with Owens that his consecutive sentences for his offenses must be treated as one continuous sentence for the purpose of calculating his parole eligibility date. But because he was convicted of two class 3 felony counts of aggravated robbery, the DOC could apply the seventy-five percent multiplier of section 17-22.5-403(2.5)(b)(I) when determining the parole eligibility date for the one continuous sentence, notwithstanding the fact that Owens is also serving a sentence for an offense that doesn't fall within section 17-22.5-403(2.5). We therefore affirm.
¶ 4 In 2017, Owens pleaded guilty to two class 3 felony counts of aggravated robbery and one class 5 felony count of vehicular eluding. The district court sentenced him to ten years in DOC custody on each of the aggravated robbery convictions and four years on the vehicular eluding conviction, all to run consecutively.
¶ 5 The DOC initially calculated Owens’ parole eligibility date using a "hybrid" method that it had employed for many years: it applied the seventy-five percent multiplier of section 17-22.5-403(2.5) to the convictions for aggravated robbery and applied the fifty percent multiplier of section 17-22.5-403(1) to the conviction for vehicular eluding. This resulted in a parole eligibility date of seventeen years from the date Owens began serving his sentence, less earned time credit.2
¶ 6 Owens filed this case under C.R.C.P. 106(a)(2) seeking a writ of mandamus requiring the DOC to calculate his parole eligibility date by treating his sentences as one continuous sentence and applying the fifty percent multiplier of section 17-22.5-403(1). He asserted that such a calculation is required because he wasn't and hadn't previously been convicted of any crime of violence.
¶ 7 The DOC moved to dismiss. It pointed out that it had recalculated Owens’ parole eligibility date by treating the three sentences as one continuous sentence as required by section 17-22.5-101, C.R.S. 2020 (). See Exec. Dir. of Colo. Dep't of Corr. v. Fetzer , 2017 CO 77, 396 P.3d 1108 (). The DOC then applied the seventy-five percent multiplier to the composite twenty-four-year sentence, which resulted in a parole eligibility date about three months later than the originally calculated date. The DOC argued that its new calculation rendered Owens’ claim moot and, in the alternative, that Owens had failed to show a clear right to the relief he requested (applying the fifty percent multiplier) because the seventy-five percent multiplier of section 17-22.5-403(2.5)(a)(I) applies to Owens’ two class 3 felony aggravated robbery convictions.
¶ 8 Relying on section 17-22.5-403(2.5)(b)(II), Owens responded that section 17-22.5-403(2.5) can't apply unless the offender has been previously convicted of a crime of violence.
¶ 9 The district court granted the DOC's motion on the DOC's alternative ground that Owens doesn't have a clear right to have his parole eligibility date calculated using the fifty percent multiplier.
¶ 10 The parties’ arguments on appeal track their arguments in the district court. Like the district court, we conclude that Owens is mistaken that he has a clear right to application of the fifty percent multiplier of section 17-22.5-403(1).3
¶ 11 Because the DOC attached an affidavit to its motion to dismiss, we will treat the motion as one for summary judgment. See C.R.C.P. 12(b) (); Churchey v. Adolph Coors Co. , 759 P.2d 1336, 1339 (Colo. 1988) ; Garcia v. Centura Health Corp. , 2020 COA 38, ¶ 50, 490 P.3d 629. We review a district court's summary judgment de novo. Burton v. Colo. Access , 2018 CO 11, ¶ 19, 428 P.3d 208. Summary judgment is proper when the record shows that there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. C.R.C.P. 56(c).
¶ 12 This case also turns largely on questions of statutory interpretation. We also review such questions de novo. Colo. Oil & Gas Comm'n v. Martinez , 2019 CO 3, ¶ 19, 433 P.3d 22 ; Nowak v. Suthers , 2014 CO 14, ¶ 17, 320 P.3d 340 ( sections 17-22.5-101 and 17-22.5-403(1) ). When we interpret a statute, we look to the entire statutory scheme to give consistent, harmonious, and sensible effect to all its parts, and we apply words and phrases consistent with their plain and ordinary meanings. Martinez , ¶ 19 ; Denver Post Corp. v. Ritter , 255 P.3d 1083, 1088-89 (Colo. 2011). If the statutory language is clear, we apply it as written, without resorting to other principles of statutory interpretation.
¶ 14 Mandamus is an extraordinary remedy that may be used to compel performance by a public official of a plain legal duty imposed on the official by virtue of the official's office. Bd. of Cnty. Comm'rs v. Cnty. Road Users Ass'n , 11 P.3d 432, 437 (Colo. 2000). It is therefore available "to compel the performance of a purely ministerial duty involving no discretionary right and not requiring the exercise of judgment." Id. ; accord Verrier v. Colo. Dep't of Corr. , 77 P.3d 875, 877-78 (Colo. App. 2003) ().
¶ 15 The burden on the plaintiff is heavy. The plaintiff must show that (1) he has a clear right to the relief he seeks; (2) the defendant has a clear duty to perform the act requested; and (3) no other remedy is available. Cnty. Road Users Ass'n , 11 P.3d at 437.
¶ 16 With these strictures in mind, we turn to the merits.
¶ 17 First off, the issue whether the DOC must treat all three of Owens’ sentences as one continuous sentence isn't disputed. The DOC concedes, as it did in the district court, that Fetzer dictates that it must do so. And the DOC in fact recalculated Owens’ parole eligibility date by doing so.
¶ 18 The real issue, then, is whether the DOC has a clear duty to apply the fifty percent multiplier of section 17-22.5-403(1) to that one continuous sentence. It does not.
¶ 19 In Fetzer , the court held that although the DOC must treat all sentences as one continuous sentence, when those sentences are for a mix of offenses that implicate different parole eligibility date calculation provisions, "the [DOC's] decision to apply some form of governing sentence theory, or some other theory or device altogether, in administering the relevant class of composite continuous sentences [is] a matter within its expertise and discretion." Fetzer , ¶ 20.
¶ 20 This case involves offenses, and resulting sentences, subject to two different calculation provisions.
¶ 21 Section 17-22.5-403(1) says, as now relevant, that a person sentenced for class 3 and class 5 felonies "shall be eligible for parole after such person has served fifty percent of the sentence imposed ...." At first glance, this provision would seem to apply — as Owens appears to argue — to all three of his sentences. But subsections (2.5)(a) and (b)(I) say, "[n]otwithstanding subsection (1) of this section , any person convicted and sentenced for ... aggravated robbery ... shall be eligible for parole after such person has served seventy-five percent of the sentence imposed" if the conviction was for "a class 3 felony offense ...."
¶ 22 Owens pleaded guilty to two class 3 felony counts of aggravated robbery. So while his sentence for vehicular eluding falls within subsection (1)’s fifty percent rule, his two aggravated robbery sentences fall within subsections (2.5)(a) and (b)(I)’s seventy-five percent rule. Per Fetzer , under these circumstances, the DOC had discretion to apply the seventy-five...
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Owens v. Carlson
...rule to all his sentences.¶13 Owens appealed, and a division of the court of appeals affirmed. Owens v. Williams, 2020 COA 177, ¶ 3, 490 P.3d 1050, 1051. Like the district court, the division concluded that Owens hadn't met his heavy burden of demonstrating that he had a clear right to have......
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