Hafelfinger v. District CourtHafelfinger v. District Court
- Reporters:
- Before:
- Neighbors (en banc)
In this original proceeding filed pursuant to C.A.R. 21, the petitioner, Robert Hafelfinger, seeks relief in the nature of mandamus and prohibition requiring Judge John A. Price and the District Court for Larimer County (respondent) to consider granting him a personal recognizance bond pursuant to
I.
According to the record, on October 21, 1981, the petitioner entered a plea of guilty to a felony charge of dispensing a dangerous drug. Pursuant to a plea agreement, the District Court for the Eighth Judicial
In July 1983, the petitioner was charged with distributing a counterfeit controlled substance1 and theft by deception2 in connection with an incident which allegedly occurred on April 21, 1983. Bail was set in the amount of $2,500. The petitioner was unable to post bail. Therefore, he filed a motion for bond reduction or for a personal recognizance bond. The respondent held a hearing on the petitioner‘s motion on August 4, 1983. The district attorney objected to granting a personal recognizance bond. The respondent denied the petitioner‘s motion because of “the refusal of the district attorney to consent to an alteration of the bond, based upon the fact that there was a prior conviction [of a felony] within five years.” The “prior conviction” to which the district judge referred was the petitioner‘s 1981 plea of guilty and the resulting deferred sentence.
II.
The petitioner‘s only argument in this original proceeding is that the respondent erred in refusing to grant a personal recognizance bond based on his prior guilty plea. He claims that a plea of guilty which results in a deferred sentence is not a conviction within the meaning of
”Selection by judge of the amount of bail and type of bond—criteria. (1) In determining the amount of bail and the type of bond to be furnished by the defendant, the judge fixing the same shall consider and be governed by the following criteria:
. . . .
“(n) Unless the district attorney consents, no person shall be released on personal recognizance if he has a record of conviction of a class 1 misdemeanor within two years, or a felony within five years, prior to the release hearing.”
The determination of whether a guilty plea to a felony accompanied by the granting of a deferred sentence comes within the purview of this statute, and thus may be considered by the trial court judge in making the bond decision, is dependent upon the meaning of the word “conviction.” The term “conviction” may be interpreted differently depending upon the statute in which it is used and the issue in a particular case. See, e.g., Jeffrey v. District Court, 626 P.2d 631 (Colo.1981) (a plea of guilty followed by a deferred sentence and judgment is a conviction for purposes of implicating the double jeopardy clause); People v. Jacquez, 196 Colo. 569, 588 P.2d 871 (1979) (see exhaustive recitation of cases cited in n. 2).
In the context of the bail bond statute, a plea of guilty, when accepted by the court which grants a deferred judgment and sentence, constitutes a conviction. The statute which authorizes the granting of a deferred sentence states:
”Deferred sentencing of defendant. (1) In any case in which the defendant has entered a plea of guilty, the court accepting the plea has the power, with the written consent of the defendant and his attorney of record and the district attorney, to continue the case for a period not to exceed two years from the date of entry of such plea for the purpose of entering judgment and sentence upon such plea of guilty. During such time, the court may place the defendant under the supervision of the probation department.”
“(3) The acceptance by the court of a plea of guilty acts as a waiver by the defendant of the right to trial by jury on all issues including the determination of the penalty to be assessed, and the acceptance of such plea also acts as a conviction for the offense.”
(Emphasis added.) When the statutes governing bail bonds [
We have held that in construing the word “conviction,” the key factor to be considered is the legislative intent behind the use of the word in the statute involved. Jacquez, 196 Colo. at 571 n. 2, 588 P.2d at 873 n. 2. The United States Supreme Court, relying upon congressional intent and purpose, recently held that a defendant had been “convicted” for purposes of title IV of the Gun Control Act of 1968,
“In some circumstances, we have considered a guilty plea alone enough to constitute a ‘conviction‘: ‘A plea of guilty differs in purpose and effect from a mere admission or an extrajudicial confession; it is itself a conviction. Like a verdict of a jury it is conclusive. More is not required; the court has nothing to do but give judgment and sentence.’ Kercheval v. United States, 274 U.S. 220, 223, 47 S.Ct. 582, 583, 71 L.Ed. 1009 (1927).”
103 S.Ct. at 991. The Court reasoned that this result was in accord with the congressional intent of prohibiting the possession of firearms by persons who might be expected to misuse them.
Similarly, the interpretation of “conviction” which we reach here is consistent with the legislative intent behind the alternatives to bail bonds provided in the statutes governing pretrial release. We have stated that the primary purpose of bail is to assure the presence of the accused at trial. People v. Sanders, 185 Colo. 153, 522 P.2d 735 (1974). However, the legislature may impose reasonable conditions under which an accused may be released on a personal recognizance bond in order to assure his or her continued presence in connection with criminal proceedings. Id. For purposes of determining the likelihood that the accused will be present at trial, a plea of guilty upon which a deferred sentence is granted has the same relevance during the period of deferment as a jury verdict and judgment of conviction. Thus, the legislature properly
III.
The petitioner argues that our decision in People v. Jacquez, 196 Colo. 569, 588 P.2d 871 (1979), mandates reversal of the respondent‘s ruling. In Jacquez, we held that for purposes of the habitual criminal statute,4
“the time of a prior conviction ... is the date the judgment of conviction is entered in the trial court. It is evident from the language used that a plea of guilty, a guilty verdict, or a finding of guilt by the trial judge, alone, could not effectively be used to enhance the punishment for the reason that the conviction process is incomplete. Until there has been an adjudication of guilty by the entry of judgment, the fact of guilt has not been judicially declared.”
196 Colo. at 572, 588 P.2d at 873-74 (emphasis added). We disagree that this decision compels us to hold now that the petitioner was not “convicted” for purposes of the bail bond statute.
On the contrary, the Jacquez decision was based on interpretation of statutory language which contained the words “convictions and judgments.” 196 Colo. at 572, 588 P.2d at 873. This language evidences a legislative intent that more than a “mere” conviction is required—a judgment is a necessary predicate before the conviction may be used for sentence enhancement purposes under the habitual criminal statute. There is more than a semantic difference between a conviction and a judgment of conviction. See Crim.P. 32(c). Jacquez should not be read as anything more than a decision in which we interpreted the meaning of “conviction” in accord with legislative intent.
We hold that the term “conviction,” as used in
We discharge the rule.