The Colorado Supreme Court pondered an unusual question on Wednesday: When a previous decision relied on an analogy, but the circumstances of the analogy have since changed, is the prior decision still valid?

Ryan Wallace Bonde’s appeal to the Supreme Court explores whether Bonde’s time in non-residential community corrections can be deducted from the prison sentence he received after he violated the terms of his community corrections placement. The state’s Court of Appeals said no, relying on a 1991 Supreme Court decision.

Bonde’s argument relied upon a change the legislature enacted after that decision, which governed how time served is awarded to nonviolent offenders released on parole. Although the change in law had nothing to do with community corrections, Bonde contended it was relevant to his case because of what the Supreme Court chose to say in 1991.

The question of time served for a person in non-residential community corrections “should be resolved in the same manner as a parolee’s claim for credit for the time served on parole,” noted the court at the time.

“You’re right, it’s a similar concept,” Justice Carlos A. Samour Jr. told Bonde’s attorney during oral arguments on Wednesday. “Yet, the legislature chose to make a change with respect to people on parole but not with respect to people who are on non-residential com-cor. And we have to respect the legislative intent, don’t we?”

According to the state, approximately 3,600 people are serving sentences in community corrections at any given time. Designed to be stricter than probation but not as harsh as prison, community corrections allows defendants to live in the community and receive support, while still being confined in a residential facility.

Defendants may progress into non-residential community corrections, where they live on their own but still experience supervision and abide by program rules. In Larimer County, where Bonde served his sentence, there were 1,042 people in the community corrections program in 2019. Non-residential participants had a higher success rate than those serving in residential facilities.

In 1991, the Supreme Court addressed the question of what happens when a defendant serves time in non-residential community corrections, but violates the terms and is resentenced to prison. By 5-2, the court ruled such defendants are not entitled to have their non-residential time deducted from their prison sentence.

Then-Chief Justice Joseph R. Quinn noted the law forbade judges from increasing the original sentence, but defendants can only benefit from time served in “confinement.” The court’s majority viewed defendants serving non-residential sentences as “not substantially different from an offender paroled from a prison,” whose circumstances are unlike confinement.

“To credit the community correctional offender with time served on nonresidential status would result in the anomaly of granting credit for presentence ‘confinement’ for a period of time during which the offender was never actually ‘confined’ in any meaningful sense of that term,” Quinn wrote in People v. Hoecher. 

Fast-forwarding to May 2020, Bonde had served 1.5 years of his sentence — first in residential community corrections and then non-residential community corrections — when Larimer County terminated him for a violation. District Court Judge Laurie K. Dean resentenced Bonde to four years in prison, the same length as his community corrections sentence.

While she gave him some credit for his time in community corrections, she did not deduct the entirety of his non-residential time from the new sentence.

Bonde appealed, arguing the Supreme Court’s conclusion in Hoecher was no longer valid. Because the court likened people serving non-residential sentences to parolees, and the legislature changed the law in 1995 to allow time-served deductions for nonviolent parolees, Bonde argued the court’s underlying logic led to a different result three decades later.

A three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals waved aside that claim.

“We read Hoecher as doing no more than analogizing a nonresidential offender to a parolee to frame the court’s analysis,” wrote Judge W. Eric Kuhn, “not binding the outcome to how a parolee’s time is treated.”

Bonde appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing Hoecher‘s analogy to parolees no longer held. Alternatively, he argued non-residential community corrections does constitute confinement — specifically, confinement to Colorado’s 104,000 square miles.

“I mean, he has a fundamental right to the freedom of movement and right to travel to other states. He was excluded from 98% of this country,” said attorney Andrew Gargano.

Justice Brian D. Boatright responded that community corrections is like a continuum, where restrictions can taper off.

“At some point along that continuum, it becomes way less restrictive. How does a trial court judge determine how this restriction, it is confinement. And then all of a sudden, it’s not?” he wondered.

Justice Richard L. Gabriel called it a “compelling argument” that Hoecher had likened defendants in Bonde’s shoes to parolees, and the legislature had since granted a benefit to nonviolent parolees that could conceivably apply to Bonde.

“But they’ve never amended the statute — com-cor statute or the pre-sentence confinement statute relating to the non-residential com-cor folks. The legislature had plenty of opportunity,” he said. “It feels to me like at some level we’re being asked to get ahead of the legislature.”

The Colroado Attorney General’s Office informed the court that Bonde had since completed his sentence and the appeal may be moot. Otherwise, the government believed the Court of Appeals’ conclusion should stand.

Justice Melissa Hart did not attend the arguments due to illness. Chief Justice Monica M. Márquez said Hart “will be participating in this matter.”

The case is Bonde v. People.