Terry v. People

In Terry v. People, 977 P.2d 145 (Colo. 1999), the court determined that, if the statute setting forth the substantive criminal offense mandates sentencing under the violent crimes statute, such offense is considered a per se crime of violence not subject to the procedural requirements of 16-11-309(4) and 16-11-309(5), C.R.S. 1999. Those subsections require the prosecution to separately plead and prove a crime of violence count. Therefore, the court determined, a defendant convicted of a per se crime of violence must be sentenced under 16-11-309. Conversely, if the substantive criminal statute does not specifically require sentencing under the violent crimes statute, a prosecutor is required to plead and prove a violent crime count against a defendant before such sentence may be imposed. See Terry v. People, supra.