A Denver judge did not follow the law when he sentenced a defendant as a habitual domestic violence offender instead of asking a jury to evaluate the man’s prior offenses, the state’s Court of Appeals ruled this month.

Sheldon M. Ryan stood trial in 2018 for physically attacking his romantic partner, and a jury found him guilty of misdemeanor assault and criminal mischief, with both offenses including an act of domestic violence. District Court Judge A. Bruce Jones then sentenced Ryan for two felonies after determining his prior convictions rendered him a habitual domestic violence offender.

However, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals agreed the law did not permit Jones to unilaterally transform the misdemeanor convictions into a felony in Ryan’s case. 

“We agree with the parties that, under the circumstances, the HDVO statute required the jury to determine whether Ryan’s prior convictions included an act of domestic violence and that the trial court erred by making that domestic violence finding,” wrote Judge Rebecca R. Freyre in the panel’s Dec. 1 opinion.

Although the habitual domestic violence offender law provides a detailed procedure for elevating a misdemeanor conviction to a domestic violence-related felony, Ryan’s case was the first time the Court of Appeals interpreted the statute since the General Assembly amended the law in 2016.

Misdemeanor offenses that include an act of domestic violence become felonies if the defendant has three or more prior domestic violence convictions. The “trier of fact,” which is generally a jury, must determine whether a prior conviction involves domestic violence. There is an exception if a defendant admits to domestic violence or a previous jury has found there to be domestic violence.

Otherwise, a jury must determine beyond a reasonable doubt that prior offenses involved domestic violence.

In Ryan’s case, Jones initially agreed to let jurors make the habitual domestic violence offender findings, but ultimately dismissed the jury following Ryan’s trial and examined for himself the paperwork prosecutors presented of Ryan’s prior convictions. There were four plea agreements in which other judges found a “factual basis of domestic violence,” but Ryan did not explicitly admit to domestic violence.

Ryan objected to Jones’ use of the documents, but the judge found the prosecution had shown “beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant has been convicted of at least four prior convictions pursuant to guilty pleas in cases that included domestic violence factual basis.”

On appeal, Ryan argued the General Assembly’s change to the habitual domestic violence offender law was prompted by concerns that it was unconstitutional to transform a misdemeanor to a felony offense without jury findings.

“Given that Mr. Ryan did not admit he had three prior convictions that included a domestic violence factual basis, under the language of the statute, the finding of a factual basis of domestic violence had to be made by the trier of fact in this case: the jury,” wrote Deputy State Public Defender Elyse Maranjian to the Court of Appeals.

The prosecution conceded Jones did not follow the law, but claimed the judge’s error was harmless because there was clear evidence that Ryan had at least three prior domestic violence convictions.

Not so, the appellate panel decided, as Ryan did not even have the chance to rebut the prosecution’s allegations.

“For that reason, we conclude that the trial court’s erroneous resolution of the domestic violence question so undermined the fundamental fairness of the proceeding as to cast serious doubt on the reliability of the HDVO adjudication,” wrote Freyre.

The panel ordered Ryan’s convictions to be reduced to the misdemeanor offenses his jury convicted him of. Alternatively, it permitted Denver prosecutors to retry Ryan for habitual domestic violence in accordance with state law. Separately, the panel overturned a $253.50 restitution order to the victim because Jones had not honored Ryan’s request for a hearing.

The case is People v. Ryan.