Background
In 1997, John Henry Cook and a codefendant lured a massage therapist to the trailer where Cook was staying. The victim was later found strangled to death in her car. A jury acquitted Cook of deliberate first-degree murder but convicted him of felony murder and robbery. He received the then-mandatory sentence of life without parole for felony murder.
Cook’s robbery conviction was later vacated because it merged into the felony-murder conviction. In 2022, Cook sought postconviction relief, arguing that his life-without-parole sentence had become unconstitutionally disproportionate after Colorado’s 2021 legislation reclassified felony murder as a class 2 felony, carrying a maximum sentence of forty-eight years for offenses committed on or after September 15, 2021.
The Court’s Holding
The Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of Cook’s Crim. P. 35(c) motion. The 2021 reclassification applies prospectively only, so Cook was not entitled to resentencing under the current felony-murder statute.
The court also held that Cook’s sentence was neither categorically unconstitutional nor grossly disproportionate as applied. Bound by People v. Sellers, the court concluded that life without parole for an adult convicted of felony murder before the 2021 amendment remains constitutional. Felony murder was per se grave and serious in Cook’s circumstances because the predicate robbery was itself per se grave and serious, and the jury found that the robbery resulted in the victim’s death. No extended proportionality review was required.
Key Takeaways
- Colorado’s 2021 reduction of felony murder from a class 1 to a class 2 felony does not apply to offenses committed before September 15, 2021.
- A pre-amendment life-without-parole sentence for adult felony murder is not categorically unconstitutional under Sellers.
- Where felony murder rests on a per se grave predicate offense such as robbery, life without parole does not create an inference of gross disproportionality.
Why It Matters
The decision confirms that the legislature’s prospective felony-murder sentencing reform does not itself provide resentencing relief for defendants whose convictions and sentences predate the effective date. It also applies Sellers to reject an individualized proportionality challenge without an extended review where the felony murder arose from a robbery that caused a death.