The federal appeals court based in Denver concluded on Tuesday that a trial judge should have held a hearing to explore whether factors beyond an incarcerated man’s control prevented him from challenging his sentence within the required window.

Michael Robert Stevens is serving a 56-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to possessing pipe bombs and being a felon in possession of ammunition. Federal law generally gives defendants one year to file a motion challenging excessive sentences. Instead, Stevens began his challenge 28 months after his September 2020 sentencing.

A trial judge rejected Stevens’ request outright, waving aside Stevens’ claims that his former public defender neglected to pursue an appeal and the government erected hurdles to Stevens filing a timely motion on his own.

But a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit deemed it a mistake to deny Stevens’ petition without knowing more about the late-filed motion.

“Because the district court did not hold a hearing, the record is inadequate to determine (1) whether, when, and how Mr. Stevens asked his attorney to file a notice of appeal, and (2) at what point Mr. Stevens could have discovered, through the exercise of due diligence, that his attorney had failed to do so,” wrote Judge Veronica S. Rossman in the panel’s April 16 order.

Police encountered Stevens asleep at the wheel of a stolen vehicle in Colorado Springs. They also found ammunition, which his criminal history prohibited him from possessing, and pipe bombs. Federal prosecutors characterized Stevens’ record as 30 years of “bouncing in and out of custody, with virtually no cessation of criminal activity.”

Stevens pleaded guilty without first having a plea agreement, ostensibly to retain his right to appeal. He was sentenced around the time he began serving sentences for multiple cases in state court. Stevens disputed the methodology for factoring those other criminal cases into his federal sentence.

When Stevens filed his sentence-reduction motion in January 2023, he alleged his former public defender was constitutionally ineffective for failing to appeal the sentence as Stevens requested. Stevens also claimed he only belated learned his public defender had retired. Moreover, officers prevented Stevens from bringing his legal documents when he transferred between state and federal custody, and he was allegedly not able to contact the federal public defender’s office while in state prison.

“There is no evidence,” U.S. District Court Senior Judge R. Brooke Jackson wrote in denying Stevens’ motion, “that Mr. Stevens asked his public defender to file an appeal from his federal sentence.”

Jackson acknowledged there was a remote possibility Stevens had a credible argument that his sentence should be shorter and his public defender was ineffective. However, the motion, filed more than two years after sentencing, was untimely.

“There is no indication that Mr. Stevens ever reached out to (the public defender’s office) after he was sentenced in September 2020 to inquire about the appeal or for any other reason,” wrote Jackson, adding it would “surprise me” if Stevens’ public defender committed the oversight Stevens claimed he did.

After Stevens appealed, prosecutors urged the 10th Circuit to agree Stevens waited too long to challenge his sentence.

There were “many other avenues open to Stevens to determine the status of his federal case,” argued Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle Brenton, which included writing to the court directly.

However, the 10th Circuit panel noted judges must hold a hearing on defendants’ motions unless the facts “conclusively” show there are no grounds for relief. Rossman, one of two former public defenders on the 10th Circuit, concluded there needed to be further inquiry into Stevens’ allegations.

“Among other things, Mr. Stevens asserts that he was unable reach his trial counsel for reasons beyond his control. Without an adequate record on these issues, it is not possible to determine whether Mr. Stevens’s ineffective assistance claim was timely filed,” she wrote.

The case is United States v. Stevens.