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According to a Colorado Court of Appeals opinion, as part of a plea agreement to resolve two cases, Ryan Bonde was sentenced to concurrent, four-year sentences in a community corrections program. About six months later, Bonde successfully completed the residential portion of these sentences and was transferred to nonresidential community supervision to complete the remainder of his time.
After spending 355 days in the nonresidential portion of the program, Bonde’s placement in the community corrections program was terminated after he was arrested on new charges. In its termination report, the community corrections program calculated Bonde had earned 153 days of earned time credits for his time in both the residential and nonresidential portions of the program.
The district attorney sought resentencing under Colorado Revised Statute 18-1.3-301(1)(e). Before he was resentenced, Bonde requested his 355 days of nonresidential time be deducted from his Colorado Department of Corrections sentences under section 18-1.3-301(1)(j).
The district court denied Bonde’s request. The court ruled 18-1.3-301(1)(j) only entitled Bonde to good time or earned time credits for his nonresidential time, not a sentence deduction for the entire amount of time he had served.
Bonde renewed his request at the sentencing hearing. The district court denied his request but noted on his mittimus both the 153 days of “earned time credit” calculated by community corrections and the 355 days of nonresidential time. According to a footnote, the court also credited Bonde with presentence confinement credit for his time in jail and residential community corrections on the amended mittimus for each case.
On appeal, Bonde contended the district court erred, claiming he is entitled to a 355-day sentence deduction for his nonresidential time under either the presentence-confinement statute, section 18-1.3-405 or the community corrections statute, 18-1.3-301(1)(j). The appeals court disagreed.
Bonde asked the Colorado Court of Appeals to depart from the holding of the 1991 Colorado Supreme Court case People v. Hoecher, because he asserted the rationale on which the Supreme Court’s holding rests, has eroded in the intervening 30 years since it was decided.
The appeals court concluded only the Supreme Court could revisit Hoecher’s explicit holding and it declined this invitation. The appeals court unanimously affirmed the sentence.
Editor’s note: a court opinion summary was redacted from this article on Aug. 21, 2024, upon request.