Background
A Boulder County jury convicted James Michael Richards in 2011 of second degree kidnapping, first degree burglary, menacing, false imprisonment, criminal mischief, trespass, vehicle tampering, and crime-of-violence enhancers. The charges arose from a 2008 incident in which Richards entered his former girlfriend’s home, held her husband at gunpoint in the basement for about fourteen hours, and discussed his mental health, financial struggles, and prior vandalism. He received an aggregate thirty-year prison sentence.
On direct appeal, the court vacated one burglary conviction and merged the false-imprisonment conviction into the kidnapping conviction, requiring resentencing. At resentencing, the court increased the kidnapping and remaining burglary sentences from ten to fifteen years each, maintaining the thirty-year aggregate term. Richards later filed a pro se Crim. P. 35(c) motion alleging, among other things, ineffective assistance concerning consecutive sentences and the increased resentencing terms. The postconviction court summarily dismissed those two claims but appointed counsel for a separate alleged uncommunicated-plea-offer claim.
The Court’s Holding
The Colorado Court of Appeals held that the postconviction court violated Crim. P. 35(c)(3)(V) by dismissing only some claims in Richards’s pro se motion after finding another claim had arguable merit and appointing postconviction counsel. Under People v. Segura, once the court does not summarily deny the entire motion and the defendant has requested counsel, it must send the complete motion to postconviction counsel. Counsel, rather than the court, must decide which pro se claims warrant investigation, supplementation, abandonment, or the addition of new claims.
The division reversed the dismissal of Richards’s two pro se claims and remanded for counsel to evaluate and, if warranted, supplement them. It affirmed the denial without an evidentiary hearing of the supplemental claims that counsel did present: the alleged failure to convey a plea offer was vague and unsupported by the files and record, and the alleged inadequate presentation of military mitigation at resentencing did not establish deficient performance or prejudice.
Key Takeaways
- A court that finds arguable merit in any claim in a counseled-requested pro se Crim. P. 35(c) motion must forward the entire motion to postconviction counsel.
- The court may not preemptively dismiss selected claims and restrict counsel’s ability to investigate and supplement them.
- A plea-offer ineffective-assistance claim may be denied without a hearing when allegations of an actual offer are vague, conclusory, and unsupported by the record.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the all-or-nothing initial-review procedure for Colorado postconviction motions identified in Segura. Once appointment procedures are triggered, courts cannot preserve some claims for counsel while conclusively rejecting others; doing so improperly intrudes on appointed counsel’s role in assessing potentially meritorious postconviction issues.
The ruling also illustrates that the procedural remand does not resolve the merits of the revived claims. The postconviction court may still deny them after counsel’s review and any supplementation, and need hold a hearing only if the resulting pleadings warrant one.