Peo v Stone

25CA2003 Peo v Stone 10-15-2026
COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS
Court of Appeals No. 25CA2003
Adams County District Court No. 94CR214
Honorable Jeffrey Ruff, Judge
The People of the State of Colorado,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
Dale S. Stone,
Defendant-Appellant.
ORDER VACATED IN PART AND AFFIRMED IN PART
Division IV
Opinion by JUDGE HARRIS
Lipinsky and Gomez, JJ., concur
NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e)
Announced October 15, 2026
Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Patrick A. Withers, Assistant Solicitor
General and Senior Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-
Appellee
Dale S. Stone, Pro Se

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¶ 1 Defendant, Dale S. Stone, appeals the district court’s order
denying her “Motion for Correction of Sentencing Arrang[e]ment
Pursuant to C.R.S. 18-3-404, M-1.”1 We vacate the portion of the
order remanding Stone to the Adams County Detention Center but
otherwise affirm.
I. Background
¶ 2 Following a jury trial, Stone was convicted of second degree
burglary, first degree criminal trespass, and third degree sexual
assault (a class 1 misdemeanor). The district court merged Stone’s
burglary and trespass convictions and sentenced her to the custody
of the Department of Corrections (DOC) for a term of twenty-four
years. The court imposed a consecutive two-year jail sentence for
the misdemeanor. A division of this court affirmed Stone’s
convictions, and the mandate issued on May 6, 1997. People v.
Stone, (Colo. App. No. 95CA0594, Aug. 29, 1996) (not published
pursuant to C.A.R. 35(f)).
1 Documents in the record refer to Stone as male. Because Stone
now identifies as female, we use “she/her” pronouns when referring
to her.

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¶ 3 Almost thirty years later, Stone filed the postconviction motion
underlying this appeal. She alleged that she never served her
consecutive two-year jail sentence because, after judgment was
entered in this case, she was promptly taken to Denver to address
other charges and was then transported directly to the DOC.2 She
asked the district court to (1) “order the misdemeanor to be placed
N[U]N[C] PRO TUNC, inside the 24-year sentence” and (2) “issue an
updated mittimus, clarifying that her misdemeanor is to run
concurrent to . . . the felony charges.”
¶ 4 The district court construed Stone’s postconviction motion
under Crim. P. 35(a). The court ruled that her consecutive
misdemeanor sentence was lawfully imposed and declined to modify
it. However, relying on section 18-1.3-501(1)(c), C.R.S. 2026, and
People v. Valadez, 2016 COA 62, the court agreed with Stone that
she should have served her jail sentence before being taken to the
DOC to begin serving her prison sentence. Accordingly, the court
ordered that Stone be remanded back to the Adams County
2 Stone was subsequently convicted in Denver and sentenced to an
aggregate sentence of 192 years in the custody of the DOC. See
People v. Stone, slip op. at ¶ 3 (Colo. App. No. 21CA1351, May 25,
2023) (not published pursuant to C.A.R. 35(e)).

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Detention Center to begin serving her misdemeanor sentence and,
after fully serving it, be returned to the custody of the DOC.3
II. Discussion
¶ 5 On appeal, Stone contends that the district court erred when
it ordered that she be remanded to the Adams County Detention
Center to serve her outstanding misdemeanor sentence. We agree.
We therefore vacate the portion of the order remanding Stone to the
Adams County Detention Center, but we otherwise affirm.
A. Crim. P. 35(a)
¶ 6 We begin by rejecting the People’s assertion that Stone’s claim
is beyond the scope of Crim. P. 35(a). As we understand it, Stone’s
claim is that section 18-1.3-501(1)(c) required the district court to
order that she serve her consecutive misdemeanor jail sentence
before serving her prison sentence. This claim is cognizable under
Crim. P. 35(a). See Valadez, ¶ 8; see also People v. Wenzinger, 155
P.3d 415, 418 (Colo. App. 2006) (“[A] sentence is ‘not authorized by
law’ under . . . Crim. P. 35(a) if it is inconsistent with the statutory
3 The district court granted Stone’s request for a stay of execution of
the court’s order pending resolution of this appeal.

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scheme outlined by the legislature.”). A claim that a sentence is not
authorized by law may be raised at any time. See Crim. P. 35(a).
B. Standard of Review
¶ 7 We review the legality of a sentence de novo. See People v.
Bassford, 2014 COA 15, ¶ 20. We also review questions of
statutory interpretation de novo. Valadez, ¶ 9.
C. Analysis
¶ 8 The district court relied on section 18-1.3-501(1)(c) and
Valadez when it ordered that Stone be remanded to the Adams
County Detention Center to serve the remainder of her
misdemeanor sentence. Section 18-1.3-501(1)(c) provides, as
relevant here, that when a court imposes a misdemeanor jail
sentence to be served consecutively to a sentence in the DOC, the
court “may order that the misdemeanor sentence be served prior to
the sentence to be served in the [DOC] and prior to the time the
defendant is transported to the [DOC].” In Valadez, a division of
this court held that when a defendant has already begun serving a
prison sentence, section 18-1.3-501(1)(c) requires that the court
“toll the prison sentence” and allow the prisoner to serve the jail

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sentence before serving the remainder of the prison sentence.
Valadez, ¶ 27.
¶ 9 But Valadez and section 18-1.3-501(1)(c) do not apply to
Stone’s misdemeanor sentence because the legislature did not add
subsection (1)(c) to section 18-1.3-501 until 2007, several years
after Stone was convicted. See Ch. 145, sec. 4, § 18-1.3-501, 2007
Colo. Sess. Laws 557-58; see also Valadez, ¶ 20 (noting that
subsection (1)(c) applied because it became effective in April 2007
and Valadez committed the misdemeanor offense in September
2007). Before the 2007 amendments discussed in Valadez, the
misdemeanor sentencing statute did not have any comparable
language to section 18-1.3-501(1)(c)’s requirement that a defendant
sentenced to a consecutive jail sentence serve the jail sentence first.
¶ 10 Rather, the version of the statute in effect when Stone was
sentenced, section 18-1-106(1), C.R.S. 1995, governed her
misdemeanor sentence. It stated that “[n]o term of imprisonment
for conviction of a misdemeanor shall be served in any state
correctional facilities unless served concurrently with a term for
conviction of a felony.” Thus, at the time Stone was sentenced,
section 18-1-106(1) indicated that defendants could not serve

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misdemeanor sentences in a prison unless the court ran the
misdemeanor sentence concurrent to a prison sentence. But it did
not prohibit (1) a court from ordering that a jail sentence be served
consecutively to a prison sentence; or (2) a consecutive jail sentence
from being served after completion of the prison sentence. See
People v. Green, 734 P.2d 616, 623 (Colo. 1987) (noting that section
18-1-106 does not prohibit a consecutive post-prison jail sentence).
¶ 11 Stone’s misdemeanor sentence is consistent with the version
of section 18-1-106 that controlled when she was sentenced. She is
not serving her misdemeanor sentence in prison. And once she
completes her prison sentence, we anticipate that the DOC will
transfer her to the county jail to serve the remainder of her
misdemeanor sentence.
¶ 12 Finally, we decline to address Stone’s claim, raised for the first
time on appeal, that she was entitled to serve her misdemeanor
sentence in an uninterrupted manner, and because it was
interrupted through “no fault” of her own, it should be considered
“expired.” The substance of this claim sounds in Crim. P. 35(c), see
People v. Battle, 742 P.2d 952, 952 (Colo. App. 1987), and Stone did
not advance it in her postconviction motion. Consequently, we will

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not address it. See DePineda v. Price, 915 P.2d 1278, 1280 (Colo.
1996).
¶ 13 Accordingly, while Stone’s sentence would today be prohibited
by section 18-1.3-501(1)(c), it was authorized by the version of
section 18-1-106(1) in effect when it was imposed. Therefore, the
district court was correct to the extent it found that Stone’s
sentence was lawful. However, because section 18-1.3-501(1)(c)
does not apply, the court erred when it ordered the DOC to comply
with it. See People v. Oglethorpe, 87 P.3d 129, 136 (Colo. App.
2003) (noting that the imposition of a sentence is a judicial function
and once a sentence is imposed, the executive branch is responsible
for carrying out the court’s mandate).
III. Disposition
¶ 14 We vacate the order insofar as it directs the DOC to return
Stone to the Adams County Detention Center. The order is
otherwise affirmed.
JUDGE LIPINSKY and JUDGE GOMEZ concur.