People v. Conlon.
2025 COA 79. No. 22CA1402. Defendant’s Rights—Court Delay in Ruling on Discovery Motion—Speedy Trial—Prosecutorial Delay in Producing Documents—Constitutionality of CRS § 18-3-602(1)(c)—Sufficiency of Evidence.
October 2, 2025
Conlon had a long history of physically, verbally, and emotionally abusing his former wife (the victim), including blinding her in one eye. He was eventually charged with two counts of second degree assault and one count each of third degree assault, stalking, and violation of a protection order. Conlon pleaded not guilty. His initial speedy trial deadline was April 17, 2020, though continuances not relevant to this appeal delayed the trial. During law enforcement’s investigation into the assaults, the victim consented to the prosecution collecting abusive messages from her phone that Conlon had sent her over several years. On December 9, 2020, the prosecutor moved for an in camera review of the victim’s cell phone records (the discovery motion) to determine which records, if any, needed to be produced to the defense. The trial was reset with new deadlines, but the court did not rule on the discovery motion until September 27, 2021, which was nine business days before the scheduled trial and hours before a trial readiness conference scheduled for the next morning. The court ordered production of 31,000 phone records as potentially relevant to the stalking charge. At the trial readiness conference, the court asked defense counsel if he was ready to proceed to trial. Defense counsel noted that he had not yet received the phone records and did not know when the prosecutor would produce them, and he requested that any additional continuance be within the currently set speedy trial window and that at least 35 days be allowed to evaluate the discovery. The court found that, through this statement, Conlon was waiving his speedy trial rights, but it reset the trial for before the December 1 speedy trial deadline. On November 21, defense counsel moved for sanctions of dismissal of the stalking and violation of a protection order counts (the sanctions motion) because the prosecution had not yet produced the phone records. The court found that the prosecution’s failure to provide the materials was the result of lack of diligence and not bad faith. The court denied the sanctions motion and reset the trial for January 10, 2022, reaffirming, over the defense’s objections, its prior finding that Conlon had waived his right to a speedy trial. Conlon was tried in April 2022 and convicted on all counts.
On appeal, Conlon argued that the court erred (1) at the September trial readiness conference by finding that he waived his statutory speedy trial right and (2) at the November conference by reaffirming its waiver finding and setting a new trial date that was past the prior December 1 speedy trial deadline. The court of appeals held that the court erred in finding that Conlon waived his statutory right to a speedy trial. The defense had no choice but to seek a continuance because of the court’s delay in ruling on the discovery issue only days before trial. But the error was harmless because the court set the new trial date before the existing speedy trial deadline. As to defense counsel’s effective request for a continuance at the November conference, under People v. Duncan, 31 P.3d 874, 876 (Colo. 2001), a prosecutor’s delay that forces a continuance results in a waiver of the defendant’s statutory speedy trial rights unless the trial court finds the prosecutor acted in bad faith. Here, lacking a finding of prosecutorial bad faith, the court held that defense counsel’s effective request for a continuance at the November conference was chargeable to Conlon, so there was no speedy trial violation.
Conlon also contended that CRS § 18-3-602(1)(c), the subsection of the stalking statute for which he was convicted, is facially overbroad. However, People v. Cross, 127 P.3d 71, 72 (Colo. 2006), addressed and rejected this identical constitutional argument, and it is binding precedent.
Lastly, Conlon asserted that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction for violating a protection order. He maintained that the prosecution failed to prove that he violated a protection order between March 27, 2019, and August 25, 2019, because the only protection order admitted into evidence was one dated November 10, 2020. However, the evidence and the reasonable inferences drawn from that evidence sufficiently support the jury’s conclusion that Conlon violated a protection order that was in effect between the specified dates.
The judgment was affirmed.