Background
Marisa Gail Garrett was charged in 2022 after her two-month-old infant was found severely malnourished — weighing only four pounds, testing positive for amphetamines, and suffering diagnoses including near-fatal malnutrition, bradycardia, and hypothermia. She pleaded guilty in May 2023 to child abuse resulting in serious bodily injury. Separately, in 2023, she pleaded guilty to second degree burglary after allegations she tampered with GPS monitoring equipment on a rental van and used it to burglarize storage units. The district court initially sentenced her to concurrent supervised probation terms in both cases, conditioned on a ninety-day jail term for the child abuse conviction.
Garrett’s compliance with probation was poor from the outset. She repeatedly failed to complete required drug (UA) testing, and in March 2024 the probation department filed a revocation complaint. Throughout the proceedings, the district court received evidence of a multi-year pattern: prior child abuse and drug offenses while on probation, a DHS record dating to 2016 reflecting educational neglect, injurious home environments, and medical neglect, and repeated instances of misleading law enforcement, medical personnel, and social services.
A central issue in the case was Colorado’s statute, § 18-1.3-103.7, C.R.S. 2025, which went into effect August 1, 2023 — after Garrett’s plea but before resentencing. The statute creates a rebuttable presumption against detention and incarceration of a pregnant or postpartum defendant, defining the postpartum period as one year after the end of a pregnancy. Garrett was either pregnant or postpartum throughout most of the post-plea proceedings, and the district court repeatedly applied the presumption to defer her jail term. After multiple continuances and further probation violations — including harboring her children without notifying authorities while they were reported missing — the court revoked probation and resentenced Garrett in August 2024 to two concurrent eight-year terms in the Department of Corrections.
The Court’s Holding
The Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed both sentences. The court first dismissed as moot Garrett’s challenges to the district court’s pretrial custody decisions in April and July 2024, because Garrett was no longer confined as a result of those earlier orders — she was serving the prison sentence imposed at the August 2024 resentencing — and any ruling on those issues would have had no practical legal effect.
On the merits of the August 2024 resentencing, the court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion. The district court had correctly understood and applied § 18-1.3-103.7: it had in fact repeatedly honored the presumption against incarceration in prior proceedings, deferring Garrett’s jail term in August and September 2023 and releasing her on bond in May 2024 expressly because of her pregnant and postpartum status. At the final resentencing, the district court made the specific on-the-record findings required by the statute to rebut the presumption, concluding that the risk to public safety and other required sentencing factors were substantial enough to outweigh the risks of incarceration.
The court also rejected Garrett’s argument that the district court had effectively penalized her for invoking her pregnant and postpartum status. Reviewing the court’s statements in context, the appellate court concluded the trial judge’s references to “lies and manipulation to escape punishment” reflected Garrett’s documented pattern of deceiving law enforcement, probation officers, and medical personnel — not an improper use of her statutory status as an aggravating factor. The court further rejected a disparity argument, noting that co-defendant sentencing comparisons are not a controlling consideration under Colorado law because sentencing is individualized.
Key Takeaways
- Colorado’s § 18-1.3-103.7 creates a rebuttable presumption against incarcerating pregnant and postpartum defendants (postpartum defined as one year after any pregnancy end), but the presumption is overcome when the court makes specific on-the-record findings that public safety or other required sentencing factors substantially outweigh the risks of incarceration.
- Challenges to discrete pretrial custody decisions become moot on appeal once the defendant is serving a subsequently imposed prison sentence, because no practical relief is available on the earlier orders.
- A sentencing court’s reference to a defendant’s “manipulation” does not constitute reversible misapplication of the pregnancy/postpartum statute where the record independently supports a pattern of deception toward law enforcement, medical providers, and the court system unrelated to the defendant’s exercise of statutory rights.
- Co-defendant sentencing disparity is not a cognizable basis for reversal under Colorado law; sentences are individualized and need not be equal among co-defendants.
Why It Matters
This is one of the first appellate decisions to apply and interpret Colorado’s relatively new pregnancy/postpartum sentencing presumption, § 18-1.3-103.7. The opinion provides concrete guidance on what it takes to rebut the presumption: the court must make specific on-the-record findings, but a documented history of persistent noncompliance, deception, and danger to children can satisfy that standard. Defense practitioners should note the statute’s broad scope — it applies at all stages including probation revocation and resentencing — but prosecutors and courts now have a roadmap for rebuttal in cases involving serious, ongoing public safety concerns.
The mootness holding also serves as a practical reminder for appellate litigants: challenges to interim custody orders must be pursued through interlocutory or emergency appellate channels. Once a defendant is serving a new sentence, appeals of superseded detention decisions will be dismissed, foreclosing any collateral relief or precedent-setting on those discrete rulings.