The Colorado Supreme Court announced this month it will hear cases that could drastically broaden the relief available to people serving lengthy sentences under the state’s “three strikes” law and that would potentially reduce a multimillion-dollar award to two tenants who were poisoned by a downstairs meth operation.

At least three of the court’s seven members must agree to take up an appeal.

The justices also signaled they might stage a rare intervention into an ongoing municipal court case, in which a couple that allegedly shoplifted $30 worth of merchandise is facing a sentence nearly 20 times as long as they would be subjected to in state court.

‘Grossly disproportionate’ sentences

In 2019, the Supreme Court handed down

major decision, Wells-yates v. People, addressing Colorado’s Habitual Criminal Act. Under the law, a person who has three prior felony convictions will receive a sentence of four times the maximum punishment for their next offense.

Previously, the law authorized life imprisonment under the “three strikes” system.

The 6-1 Wells-yates decision recognized that “grossly disproportionate” sentences are unconstitutional. Therefore, judges must take certain factors into account when they review the proportionality of a defendant’s sentence, including the seriousness of the conduct, the harshness of the penalty and whether changes in the law have lessened any of the punishments for a defendant’s offenses.

Recently, however, defendants who were convicted many years before Wells-yates have raised a question: Do their sentences now get a fresh review?

In a pair of decisions from earlier this year, the state’s Court of Appeals said no.

An El Paso County jury convicted Rodney Dewayne Mcdonald in 1996 under the habitual criminal law and he received 72 years in prison; four years prior, Denver jurors convicted David L. Ward under the same law and he is serving life. After Wells-yates, both men petitioned for a review of their sentences’ proportionality.

Although defendants normally have a limited window to seek postconviction relief, that does not apply when there is a new rule of constitutional interpretation that affects the conduct underlying a person’s conviction.

“Wells-yates only clarified the methods Colorado courts should use when evaluating whether a habitual sentence is constitutionally disproportionate,” wrote Judge W. Eric Kuhn in Mcdonald’s appeal, labeling it a “procedural” change and not a retroactive constitutional rule.

Mcdonald and Ward appealed, arguing many defendants are serving lengthy sentences based on prior offenses that are treated less severely today — particularly drug crimes.

The Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether its new standards for conducting proportionality reviews should apply retroactively.

Meth lab downstairs

After an eight-day trial with 31 witnesses, a disturbing set of facts emerged about what the occupants of Unit 303E experienced in Littleton’s Main Street Apartments.

In 2017, Kathleen Keaten and her adult daughter, Delaney Keaten, noticed a chemical smell in their apartment and reported the fumes to the property manager. Continuing into 2018, the Keatens suspected they were being exposed to methamphetamine from the unit below them and reported burning sensations, dizziness, bloody noses and difficulty breathing. The operators of the complex, Terra Management Group and Littleton Main Street, evicted the downstairs tenant, but otherwise did not address the meth allegations.

Only in response to a court order did the landlords test the unit and find multiple areas of highly concentrated meth that apparently seeped into the Keatens’ apartment. Both women now suffer from permanent brain injuries and signs of dementia, and Kathleen Keaten’s service dog has become less responsive following the exposure.

In an August 2021 order after trial, then-arapahoe County District Court Judge Frederick T. Martinez awarded the Keatens $10.5 million in damages, finding the defendants unreasonably left the women to suffer the severe consequences of meth exposure despite being aware of the problem for months. He further slammed the defendants for evicting the downstairs tenant and removing her alleged meth-making supplies, while failing to document or preserve the evidence.

The defendants attempted to “cover up, hide or destroy evidence when they knew of the Keatens’ claims and the threat of potential liability,” he wrote.

A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals took no issue with Martinez’s conclusion that the defendants destroyed evidence, even though the Keatens would not file suit for more than a year afterward.

“Plaintiffs were vocal and persistent in their complaints related to the toxic fume exposure they were experiencing,” wrote retired Supreme Court Justice Alex J. Martinez, sitting on the panel at the chief justice’s assignment.

The landlords again appealed, telling the Supreme Court that the $10.5 million award to the Keatens had bankrupted the defendants. They believed Judge Frederick Martinez had improperly penalized them for destroying evidence before they knew they had any obligation to do so.

The Supreme Court has agreed to evaluate when the landlords’ duty to preserve evidence kicked in.

An extreme difference in punishment

According to the police report, Jeremiah and Michelle Mobley walked out of a boutique clothing store in Rifle earlier this year with two $15 shirts, neither of which they paid for. When officers arrived at the home, Michelle Mobley gave back the $30 in merchandise and received a summons for theft.

The Mobleys’ charge fell under the Rifle Municipal Code. Although the definition of theft was almost identical to the one in state law, there was a critical difference: If they were convicted in state court, they would face a maximum of 10 days in jail. Under the municipal code, they could spend up to six months behind bars.

The Mobleys sought to declare Rifle’s code unconstitutional, as it imposed a more severe sentence for identical conduct. In response, the city argued its “unique” location along Interstate 70 gave it grounds to deter theft more harshly than the state has chosen to.

“Rifle specifically attracts travelers and pulls consumers from a wide rural area. This mixed market lends itself to a higher rate of instances of theft than comparable cities,” claimed prosecuting attorney Timothy L. Graves. With a 10-day maximum jail sentence, “there would be no sufficient deterrence of theft within this unique municipality.”

In June, Municipal Court Judge Victor M. Zerbi concluded Rifle was able to enact a harsher punishment for theft. He acknowledged the lack of recent court decisions on the subject, and instead linked to CNN and Fox News articles about retail theft in his order.

“This Court submits the differences between the state and Rifle theft sentencing schemes is not unreasonable,” he wrote.

The Mobleys appealed to the Supreme Court, urging it to declare the theft provision of Rifle’s code unconstitutional.

“These arguments of the prosecution, adopted by the trial court, cite no evidence to support the contention that somehow theft in the city of Rifle is a more serious problem than in any other jurisdiction in the state, therefore requiring a penalty up to eighteen times greater than the maximum allowable sentence for the same offense pursuant to state,” their attorneys wrote.

The Supreme Court has ordered the city to respond to the Mobleys’ claims.