People v. Edwards

• Decision Date: 08 March 2007
• Docket Number: No. 05CA1159.,05CA1159.
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joseph EDWARDS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Colorado Court of Appeals

165 P.3d 904

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joseph EDWARDS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 05CA1159.

Colorado Court of Appeals, Div. I.

March 8, 2007.

Certiorari Granted July 30, 2007.

John W. Suthers, Attorney General, Jennifer M. Smith, Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

The Joffe Law Firm, Sara A. Rodrigues, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant.

Opinion by Judge ROY.

Defendant, Joseph Edwards, appeals the trial court's order denying his request for additional presentence confinement credit. Defendant acknowledges in his opening brief that he has completed the confinement portion of his sentence and is presently serving mandatory parole. Because we conclude that the issue raised by defendant is moot, we dismiss the appeal.

In 1994, following a jury trial, defendant was convicted of aggravated robbery and conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery in connection with the robbery of an adult bookstore. On April 17, 1995, defendant was sentenced to a term of ten years in the Department of Corrections (DOC) for aggravated robbery, and a concurrent term of six years for conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery. Aggravated robbery carried a five-year term of mandatory parole pursuant to § 18-1.3-401(1)(a)(V)(A), C.R.S.2006. Defendant was granted nineteen days of presentence confinement credit pursuant to § 18-1.3-405, C.R.S.2006. Defendant's conviction was affirmed on appeal. People v. Edwards, (Colo.App. No. 95CA0928, Feb. 20, 1997) (not published pursuant to C.A.R. 35(f)).

Defendant first challenged his presentence confinement credit in 2005 during an evidentiary hearing on a postconviction motion raising other issues, claiming that an incorrect calculation or clerical error had just been discovered. Defendant then filed a Crim. P. 36 motion to correct the mittimus. The People objected, arguing that defendant had received the credit for presentence confinement in a separate case and that his sentence in that case was consecutive to the sentence in this case. The trial court denied the motion in an order dated June 7, 2005. Defendant filed a motion to reconsider which was also denied. Defendant has since been released on mandatory parole.

Generally, an appellate court will decline to render an opinion on the merits of an appeal when events subsequent to the underlying litigation have rendered the issue moot. People v. Black, 915 P.2d 1257 (Colo. 1996). An issue is moot when the relief requested would have no practical effect upon an existing legal controversy. Brown v. Colorado Dep't of Corrections, 915 P.2d 1312 (Colo.1996).

Section 18-1.3-405 provides that a person confined for an offense prior to the imposition of sentence for that offense is entitled to a credit against the term of his or her sentence, and that "[s]uch period of confinement shall be deducted from the sentence by the department of corrections."

Here, defendant has completed the confinement portion of his sentence by virtue of having been placed on mandatory parole. Once he was placed on mandatory parole, the balance of his sentence to incarceration was discharged. See § 18-1.3-401(1)(a)(V)(D), C.R.S.2006; People v. Luther, 58 P.3d 1013 (Colo.2002); People v. Perea, 74 P.3d 326 (Colo.App.2002). Thus, there is no period of confinement from which to deduct any additional presentence confinement.

The result is not changed by defendant's assertion that a violation of a term of parole could result in additional confinement. While that is true, it does not impact the analysis. Mandatory parole is a statutorily prescribed and distinct component that attaches automatically to any sentence involving imprisonment. Craig v. People, 986 P.2d 951 (Colo.1999); see also Martin v. People, 27 P.3d 846 (Colo.2001)(the penalty imposed on felony offenders consists of both an incarceration component and a separate parole component). All decisions regarding mandatory parole are left exclusively to the Board of Parole, an entity separate and apart from the DOC. See § 17-2-201, C.R.S.2006; Craig v. People, supra. A violation of the parole term can convert the parole term into an additional imprisonment term for up to the balance of the mandatory parole period. However, that conversion is not an immediate and automatic consequence of...