People v. Bonde.
2023 COA 75. No. 21CA0137. Credit for Presentence Confinement—Community Corrections Programs—Credit Against Term of Confinement—Nonresidential Community Supervision.
August 24, 2023
Bonde was sentenced to concurrent, four-year sentences in a community corrections program. After he successfully completed the residential portion of these sentences, he was transferred to nonresidential community supervision to complete the remaining portion. Bonde was then arrested on new charges, and the district attorney sought resentencing under CRS § 18-1.3-301(1)(e). Bonde requested a sentence reduction under CRS § 18-1.3-301(1)(j) for the 355 days of nonresidential time he had served. The district court ruled that CRS § 18-1.3-301(1)(j) only entitled Bonde to good time or earned time credits for his nonresidential time, not a sentence deduction for the entire amount of time he had served. It terminated his sentence to the community corrections program and resentenced him to the custody of the Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC).
On appeal, Bonde argued that the district court erred in sentencing him. He maintained that he is entitled to a 355-day sentence deduction for his nonresidential time under the presentence confinement statute, CRS § 18-1.3-405, because he was “confined” while serving nonresidential time under the reasoning of People v. Hoecher, 822 P.2d 8 (Colo. 1991). However, in Hoecher the Colorado Supreme Court explicitly held that an offender “is not entitled upon resentencing to credit for that part of the community correctional sentence served as a nonresident,” and only the Supreme Court may revisit this explicit holding. Accordingly, Bonde was not entitled to 355 days of presentence confinement credit under CRS § 18-1.3-405, and the district court did not err.
Bonde also contended that the district court erred in sentencing him because his 355 days of nonresidential time must count as “time completed” credit under CRS § 18-1.3-301(1)(j). He maintained that this statute describes a credit for nonresidential time completed that the CDOC must apply to his sentence in the same way as credits for the time served in a CDOC facility. However, the reference to “credits for . . . nonresidential time completed” in CRS § 18-1.3-301(1)(j) evidences only the legislature’s intent to make sure that offenders receive earned time and good time credits based on time spent in residential and nonresidential programs. The statute does not create a new class of time served credit but simply instructs the CDOC to not discriminate between credits earned in community corrections and those earned while serving time in the CDOC.
The sentence was affirmed.