An El Paso County judge had no legal authority to extend a woman’s probation by five years simply because she was too poor to make her entire restitution payment to her victim in time, Colorado’s second-highest court ruled last week.

A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals acknowledged trial judges may extend a defendant’s probation if she “fails to make a payment of restitution.” But in the case of Andrea Alicia Martinez, she had, in fact, made all of her restitution payments during her four-year probationary sentence. Martinez adhered to a payment plan that reflected what she was capable of paying, but the interest on the restitution actually ballooned the amount she owed from $150,000 to $188,000 by the end.

Lengthening Martinez’s probation until she paid off the entire amount, which she could likely never do, would be “the functional equivalent of a lifetime sentence to probation, simply because of the defendant’s indigence,” wrote Judge Christina F. Gomez for the appellate panel.

Martinez pleaded guilty to vehicular assault after she hit a pedestrian while driving intoxicated. The victim suffered serious injuries as a result. In August 2016, Martinez received a sentence of four years’ probation and was ordered to pay $150,553 in restitution to her victim. Based on her financial ability, Martinez’s payment plan required her to pay $50 per month, which later increased to $100.

Martinez paid every month, save for two months when she lost her job. She later repaid those missed amounts.

One month before the four-year period ended, Martinez’s probation officer sought to revoke her probation. Although Martinez had recently paid more than her monthly plan required, she now owed a total of $188,296 to the victim due to the subsantial interest rate.

District Court Judge David A. Gilbert held a hearing, where he determined “the right thing to do” would be to extend Martinez’s probation for five more years, albeit on unsupervised probation.

“The law quite explicitly allows me to extend this probation,” he said.

The Court of Appeals, however, found Gilbert’s actions problematic. The law allows for an extension of probation when a defendant fails to make a payment, “not when a defendant fails to pay the full amount of restitution ordered,” Gomez pointed out.

Further, Martinez’s original probation included restrictions on her travel, alcohol use, possession of weapons and included limits on her privacy. A defendant on probation also faces the consequence of being incarcerated if a judge decides to revoke their probation.

It was not the case, the panel reasoned, that Martinez’s inability to pay more money toward her restitution justified prolonging such probationary conditions.

“Considering the continued threat of incarceration and the panoply of restrictions that may be imposed upon a defendant on probation, we cannot agree that good cause justifies the extension of probation under the circumstances of this case,” Gomez wrote.

She added that Colorado law still requires defendants to keep paying restitution, even without an elongated probation.

The case is People v. Martinez.