Owens v. Williams.
2022 CO 33. No. 21SC52. Parole Eligibility Calculation—One-Continuous-Sentence Rule—CRS § 17-22.5-101—CRS § 17-22.5-403—Hybrid Method of Calculating Sentence.
June 21, 2022
In this case, the Supreme Court considered the Colorado Department of Corrections’s (DOC) calculation method to determine the parole eligibility date for defendant, who is serving three consecutive prison sentences. Colorado law requires that defendant’s sentences be treated as a single continuous sentence for purposes of calculating his parole eligibility date. What complicates matters is that one of defendant’s sentences is subject to a statutory provision that renders him parole eligible after serving 50% of the sentence, while the other two sentences are subject to a statutory provision that renders him parole eligible after serving 75 % of those sentences. The question is whether defendant is eligible for parole after serving 50%, 75%, or some other percentage of his one continuous sentence.
The Court concluded that, under the specific circumstances present, the DOC is required to determine the parole eligibility date for defendant’s one continuous sentence by employing a hybrid system that effectuates both calculation rules. Consequently, the DOC must apply the 50% rule to the sentence subject to that rule and the 75% rule to the two sentences subject to that rule. After doing so, the DOC must combine the resulting calculations to determine the parole eligibility date for the defendant’s single continuous sentence. This system at once honors the two different calculation rules and the one-continuous-sentence requirement.
Because the Court of Appeals erroneously approved the non-hybrid methodology used by the DOC to calculate defendant’s parole eligibility date, the judgment was reversed. However, because the DOC has since recalculated defendant’s parole eligibility date, and because the new calculation is consistent with this opinion, no further action is required. Accordingly, the matter was remanded with instructions to simply return the case to the district court.