Background
A jury convicted Troy Dion Melons of violating a protection order, a class 1 misdemeanor, and acquitted him of several other charges, including a class 4 felony. The trial court imposed an eighteen-month jail sentence.
About a year later, Melons filed a pro se motion to vacate the proceeding for lack of jurisdiction. He alleged that he was tried outside Colorado’s statutory six-month speedy-trial period and that appointed counsel failed to advise him about critical elements of the offenses and his speedy-trial right.
The postconviction court denied the motion without a hearing, finding that Melons pleaded not guilty on March 22, 2022, and trial began August 1, 2022—within six months of the plea.
The Court’s Holding
The Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed. It treated Melons’s motion as a Crim. P. 35(c) postconviction motion and held that the record conclusively defeated his statutory speedy-trial claim. Under section 18-1-405(1), the six-month period runs from entry of a not-guilty plea, not from arrest.
The court also rejected Melons’s ineffective-assistance claim based on counsel’s failure to assert a statutory speedy-trial violation because that argument would have been futile. His separate assertion that counsel failed to explain critical offense elements was too bare, conclusory, and vague to warrant a hearing.
The court declined to consider constitutional speedy-trial arguments raised for the first time on appeal. It also declined Melons’s request in his reply brief to dismiss the appeal so he could further develop his ineffective-assistance claims in district court.
Key Takeaways
- Colorado’s statutory speedy-trial clock begins when the defendant enters a not-guilty plea.
- A court may deny a Rule 35(c) claim without a hearing when the record refutes it.
- Counsel is not ineffective for declining to raise a futile statutory speedy-trial argument.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the pleading and record-based limits on Colorado postconviction relief. Defendants must present sufficiently specific factual allegations in their Rule 35(c) motions, and appellate courts generally will not consider new constitutional theories raised for the first time on appeal.