People v. Morris.
2024 COA 105. No. 22CA0923. Sentencing Discretion—Youthful Offender System—Diagnostic Evaluation—Revocation—Behavioral or Mental Health Disorder.
September 26, 2024
Morris pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery as an extraordinary risk crime and crime of violence for a crime he committed at age 18. Pursuant to his plea agreement and the youthful offender statute, the district court sentenced him to 24 years in the custody of the Department of Corrections (DOC), suspended on condition that he successfully complete a seven-year youthful offender system (YOS) sentence. Morris entered the YOS and was initially assessed as having no mental health needs, based in part on his self-report denying any mental health history. About three months later, in early 2020, a multidisciplinary YOS team recommended revocation of Morris’s YOS sentence due to his failure to progress in the program and his convictions of four discipline violations, including strangling another offender until the offender became unconscious. The warden overruled the recommendation in favor of further remediation, which was unsuccessful. In July 2020, the multidisciplinary team again recommended revocation. Between that time and the approval of the revocation recommendation in October 2020, Morris reported hearing voices. Shortly thereafter, he was transferred to the county jail. The prosecution moved to revoke Morris’s YOS sentence due to his failure to comply with his YOS terms and conditions. At the final revocation hearing, Morris argued that his failure to complete the program was due to an undiagnosed and unmedicated mental health disorder, and he requested transfer to a DOC special needs unit for diagnostic validation. The district court found that it had no authority to order Morris’s transfer for diagnostic validation and that Morris’s failure to comply with the YOS terms and conditions was not due to mental health issues, noting that Morris had not disclosed a mental health history until it was clear he would not be staying in the YOS. The court imposed the original DOC sentence and granted Morris credit for time served.
On appeal, Morris argued that the court misunderstood its discretion to not revoke his sentence under the YOS statute, CRS § 18-1.3-407, because the DOC had not completed a diagnostic validation. Under the YOS statute, the DOC has exclusive power to transfer offenders for diagnostic validation, and a district court lacks discretion to dismiss revocation proceedings based on a youthful offender’s allegation of an undiagnosed behavioral or mental health disorder. Accordingly, the district court had no authority to order a diagnostic validation of Morris. Further, as the parties agreed, the district court must impose either the original DOC sentence or a reduced one whenever an offender is returned to court after a diagnosis determining that the offender is incapable of completing a YOS sentence. Here, Morris was returned to the district court for failure to comply with the YOS terms and conditions, and he stipulated that he violated those terms and conditions and couldn’t successfully complete his sentence. Therefore, the court did not abuse its limited discretion under the YOS statute and case law by revoking Morris’s YOS sentence and imposing the original sentence to DOC custody.
Morris also contended that the district court based its sentencing decision on a clearly erroneous finding that he had not disclosed his mental health history until after the DOC recommended revocation. However, once a YOS sentence is revoked, the district court lacks sentencing discretion unless the revocation follows a diagnostic validation determining that the offender is incapable of completing a YOS sentence. Thus, even assuming that the court erred, any error is harmless, because whether Morris was malingering is immaterial to his sentence. Here, there no diagnostic validation, and Morris’s own expert witness testified that Morris was capable of completing a YOS sentence.
The order and sentence were affirmed.
The full opinion is available at https://www.coloradojudicial.gov/system/files/opinions-2024-09/22CA0923.pdf.