Background
A jury convicted Louis Camacho, Jr. in 2000 of second degree kidnapping, second degree assault, and menacing. The trial court later adjudicated him a habitual criminal and imposed an aggregate seventy-two-year Department of Corrections sentence. A prior appeal affirmed his sentence, and he filed several unsuccessful postconviction motions between 2003 and 2019.
After the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Erlinger v. United States, Camacho filed a 2024 postconviction motion challenging the habitual-criminal proceeding and the extraordinary-risk designation of his offenses. The postconviction court denied that motion, and Camacho did not appeal. In his later motion at issue, labeled under Crim. P. 35(a), he again argued that a jury should have decided the habitual-criminal and extraordinary-risk issues.
The Court’s Holding
The Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed. Camacho’s habitual-criminal challenge did not establish an illegal sentence because the statute in effect in 2000 authorized the trial court to adjudicate habitual-criminal counts. The claim did not concern the court’s jurisdiction, and any claim that the sentence was imposed in an illegal manner was untimely.
To the extent Camacho relied on Erlinger, his argument was a constitutional Crim. P. 35(c) claim, not a Rule 35(a) claim. The court held that the issue had already been denied in the unappealed January 2025 order and that Erlinger does not apply retroactively on collateral review. His extraordinary-risk claim, based on Erlinger, Apprendi, and Alleyne, was successive and also failed on the merits because the jury instructions required findings that Camacho used a deadly weapon, making the relevant convictions crimes of violence and extraordinary-risk crimes.
Key Takeaways
- A sentence is not illegal under Rule 35(a) when it complied with the sentencing statute in effect when imposed.
- Erlinger does not apply retroactively in Colorado collateral proceedings.
- Constitutional sentencing claims cannot be recast as Rule 35(a) claims to avoid Rule 35(c)’s procedural bars.
Why It Matters
The decision applies Colorado’s nonretroactivity rule for Erlinger and reinforces the distinction between a sentence unauthorized by law and a constitutional challenge to the procedure used to impose it. It also confirms that claims previously raised, or available to be raised, in postconviction litigation may be barred as successive.