Background
Michael Duwayne Jacobs was convicted of sexual assault on a child based on conduct in April 2002. The district court sentenced him under Colorado’s Sex Offender Lifetime Supervision Act to an indeterminate prison term of six years to life and a parole term of ten years to life. His conviction was affirmed on direct appeal.
In 2011, Jacobs moved under Colorado Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(a) to correct an allegedly illegal sentence. He argued that he instead was entitled to discretionary parole under section 17-2-201(5)(a.5). The district court denied relief, and the Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that subsection (5)(a.7), which directs that parole be determined under SOLSA for qualifying post-November 1, 1998 sex offenses, governed his sentence.
Jacobs filed a second Rule 35(a) motion in 2024, repeating the discretionary-parole argument. The district court denied the motion because the issue had already been resolved.
The Court’s Holding
The Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed. Although Rule 35(a) permits a defendant to seek correction of an illegal sentence at any time, it does not permit renewed relief on an issue resolved in an earlier proceeding.
The court held that the law-of-the-case doctrine barred Jacobs from relitigating whether section 17-2-201(5)(a.5) applied. The prior appellate decision correctly held that section 17-2-201(5)(a.7) applied because Jacobs was sentenced under SOLSA for conduct occurring after November 1, 1998.
Accordingly, Jacobs’ indeterminate parole term was properly determined under SOLSA, including the ten-years-to-life parole period applicable to a class 4 sex offense. Jacobs neither showed that the earlier ruling was unsound nor that following it would cause manifest injustice.
Key Takeaways
- A Rule 35(a) motion may be filed at any time, but it cannot be used to relitigate an issue already decided on appeal.
- Law of the case generally controls unless the earlier decision is no longer sound or would produce manifest injustice.
- For qualifying SOLSA sex offenses committed on or after November 1, 1998, parole is determined under SOLSA rather than the discretionary-parole provision Jacobs invoked.
Why It Matters
The decision confirms that the availability of an illegal-sentence motion “at any time” is not an exception to finality principles. Defendants cannot obtain a second merits determination simply by filing a successive Rule 35(a) motion advancing the same statutory argument.
It also reaffirms that SOLSA’s parole framework governs qualifying offenses, including the indeterminate parole term imposed here.