People v. Spomer.
2025 COA 39. No. 23CA1556. Interstate Agreement on Detainers—Detainer Definition—Arrest Warrants.
April 10, 2025
In 2020, Spomer was charged with multiple criminal violations in Jefferson County. The court issued a summons for Spomer to appear at a hearing on the charges, but the prosecution could not serve the summons, so the court issued a warrant for Spomer’s arrest. Spomer was arrested in Weld County in 2021 for criminal charges there. Based on his Weld County arrest, the court canceled the arrest warrant in this matter. Spomer was released on bond and an arraignment in the Jefferson County case was set, but Spomer failed to appear, so the Jefferson County District Court issued a warrant for his arrest. In November 2021, Spomer was arrested in Adams County, and the court again canceled the warrant in this matter. Spomer was once more released on bond, and the arraignment in this case was reset for January 2022. Spomer again didn’t appear for the arraignment, so the district court issued another warrant for his arrest. The record shows that Spomer failed to appear at the January 10 arraignment because he was in custody in Kansas, where he remained until sometime in February 2022, when he was extradited to Ohio to face criminal charges there. Spomer was sentenced in the Ohio matter in June 2022 with an expected release in May 2023. In June 2022, the Weld County District Attorney lodged a detainer against Spomer with the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) for the charges pending in Weld County, pursuant to the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (IAD), CRS § 24-60-501. In March 2023, Spomer filed a pro se letter with the Jefferson County District Court stating that he was incarcerated in Ohio and had received notice of a pending warrant and detainer out of Jefferson County, and asking for dismissal of the pending Jefferson County charges or time served on them so that he could stay in Ohio after his release from custody. The court denied his requests, noting that he was represented by counsel. In May 2023, Spomer completed his Ohio sentence and was returned to Colorado based on the Weld County detainer. In June 2023, Spomer, through appointed counsel, moved to dismiss the underlying Jefferson County case for violations of the IAD and his constitutional rights to a speedy trial and due process, asserting, as relevant here, that the ODRC warden had failed to notify Spomer of the Jefferson County detainers against him. The district court concluded that the IAD’s protections extended to Spomer’s case because while he was in custody in another state, an open warrant for his arrest in this case constituted a “detainer” under the IAD. The court then concluded that Spomer’s rights under the IAD had been violated because officials at the ODRC had failed to notify him of the detainer. The court dismissed all charges based on an IAD violation. The court didn’t address Spomer’s constitutional claims because it dismissed all charges based on an IAD violation.
On appeal, the People argued that the district court erred by finding that the issuance of Spomer’s arrest warrant, by itself, constituted a detainer for IAD purposes. The IAD doesn’t define “detainer,” but the Colorado Supreme Court has consistently relied on the US Supreme Court’s interpretation of the term to mean “a request filed by a criminal justice agency with the institution in which a prisoner is incarcerated, asking that the prisoner be held for the agency, or that the agency be advised when the prisoner’s release is imminent.” Fex v. Michigan, 507 U.S. 43, 44 (1993). The court of appeals concluded that the statutory definition of “warrant” in CRS § 16-1-104(18) doesn’t show that a warrant falls within the definition of detainer or fulfills the purposes of a detainer because a warrant doesn’t ask a custodial institution to hold a prisoner for a criminal justice agency or to advise the agency of the prisoner’s imminent release. The court was persuaded by Tucker v. United States, 569 A.2d 162 (D.C. 1990), that an arrest warrant will serve as a detainer for IAD purposes if it (1) is based on an untried information, indictment, or complaint; (2) is filed by a criminal justice agency; (3) is filed directly with the facility where a prisoner is incarcerated; (4) notifies prison officials that a prisoner is wanted to face pending charges; and (5) asks the institution where the prisoner is incarcerated either to hold the prisoner at the end of the prisoner’s sentence, or to notify agency officials when the prisoner’s release is imminent. Here, the record does not indicate that a Jefferson County criminal justice agency filed or lodged the arrest warrant with the ODRC or that the agency officials requested that Spomer be held or that they be notified of his imminent release. Accordingly, the mere issuance of the warrant for Spomer’s arrest did not meet the definition of detainer to trigger the IAD provisions, so the district court erred by treating it as a detainer and finding an IAD violation.
The judgment of dismissal was reversed and the case was remanded for the district court to reinstate the charges and consider Spomer’s contention that his constitutional rights were violated.