A judge improperly ordered a defendant to donate $1 million to a charity of the district attorney’s choice as part of his criminal sentence without first establishing what purpose it would serve, the Colorado Court of Appeals determined on Thursday.

Robert Dalton Greenlee, a former mayor of Boulder from 1998-1999, killed Patricia Lucero in a high-speed, head-on crash in 2016 and injured other drivers. He pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide, careless driving causing injury and reckless driving. Greenlee, who was in his late seventies during his sentencing in 2018, received 10 years of probation.

The Boulder Daily Camera reported at the time that Lucero’s family and prosecutors asked for a prison sentence, but Costilla County District Court Judge M. Jon Kolomitz believed that incarceration would likely kill Greenlee given his health.

“For the rest of my life, I will be extremely sorry,” Greenlee said at sentencing.

Kolomitz also ordered one year of electronic monitoring, a $100,000 fine and 200 hours of community service. Finally, Greenlee had “to make a $100,000 donation every year of probation . . . to a charity recognized as a 501(c) determined by the 12th Judicial District Attorney’s Office” that was not tax deductible.

On appeal, Greenlee argued that the charitable contribution mandate constituted an illegal sentence. There is precedent in Colorado for the allowance of charitable donations as a component of sentencing.

In the 1986 case of People v. Burleigh, the court of appeals upheld the portion of a 60-year-old retired doctor’s sentence requiring him to make a $5,000 donation for the crime of unlawfully dispensing controlled substances. The court in that instance noted Thomas D. Burleigh, Jr. had no prior record, that his crime was “isolated,” and the donation “would certainly meet not only the rehabilitation and education purposes of probation, but also the best interests of the public.”

“We agree with the division in Burleigh that charitable contributions may be imposed as a condition of probation if the district court makes findings to support the proposition that, in a defendant’s particular case, the contribution serves the purposes of probation,” wrote Judge Gilbert M. Román in Greenlee’s case. “[H]owever, we see no factual findings of this nature in the record.”

Román elaborated that Kolomitz had apparently not determined specifically whether the donation was reasonably related to Greenlee’s rehabilitation or probation, or even whether he had the ability to pay. Nor did the stipulation about the lack of tax-deductibility seem founded.

The appellate judges ordered the trial court to reevaluate the donation directive in light of those questions.

Mark E. Biddison, Greenlee’s attorney, said that charitable contributions are not a statutory condition of probation, and that he believed the $1 million amount was “strictly punitive in nature.” Greenlee has not made any contributions while the case was on appeal.

“The trial court initially did not establish a factual nexus between the incident and the need to make specific charitable contributions,” added Biddison. “Or how it would encourage Mr. Greenlee to be more law-abiding.”

Robert S. Willett, the district attorney for the 12th Judicial District, said on Thursday afternoon that he would need to look at the ruling in depth and determine how to proceed.

The case is People v. Greenlee.