Peo v. Barron

24CA0408 Peo v Barron 11-20-2025

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 24CA0408
City and County of Denver District Court No. 22CR3865
Honorable A. Bruce Jones, Judge

The People of the State of Colorado,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

Tony A. Barron,

Defendant-Appellant.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED

Division VI
Opinion by JUDGE GOMEZ
Welling and Sullivan, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e)
Announced November 13, 2025

Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Jessica E. Ross, Senior Assistant Attorney
General and Assistant Solicitor General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee

Joseph Chase, Alternate Defense Counsel, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-
Appellant
¶1 Defendant, Tony A. Barron, appeals the judgment of

conviction entered pursuant to a plea agreement. Barron asks us

to reverse his conviction and require the prosecution to re-extend a

previous plea offer because he detrimentally relied on the

prosecutor’s promise to hold that offer open. We conclude that

Barron waived this argument by pleading guilty pursuant to a later

plea agreement. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment.

I. Background

¶2 In July 2022, following an armed robbery at a McDonald’s,

Barron was charged with one count of aggravated robbery as a

crime of violence and one count of third degree assault.

¶3 Barron’s case was initially set for a preliminary hearing in

August 2022 before the county court. On the scheduled hearing

date, Barron’s public defender asked to continue the hearing and

waived Barron’s right to have the hearing within thirty-five days of

his request for a hearing. See Crim. P. 5(a)(4)(I); Crim. P. 7(h)(2).

Defense counsel explained at the time that she needed additional

time to look into the cases Barron had pending in other

jurisdictions. The court granted her request and reset the hearing.

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¶4 Although there was no mention of a plea offer during the

colloquy before the court, the parties agree that the prosecutor

extended an offer that day for Barron to plead guilty to one count of

aggravated robbery with a sentencing range of ten to sixteen years.

They also seem to agree that the prosecutor said she would hold the

offer open until the next hearing date. Defense counsel later

indicated that she conveyed the offer to Barron at that time but that

he didn’t accept it then because they hadn’t yet had a chance to

discuss it and hadn’t yet received all the discovery from the

prosecution. She also later said that she had waived the thirty-five-

day rule in order “to keep the offer open on the table.”

¶5 At the next scheduled hearing date in September, defense

counsel again asked to continue the preliminary hearing and

reiterated that Barron had already waived the thirty-five-day rule.

Defense counsel explained that she had just learned that the

prosecutor was filing additional charges and that this had

“change[d] the calculus that [Barron] needs to make regarding a

waiver or moving forward.” She further explained that she “would

also like to do additional work on the case” before the preliminary

hearing. The court granted that request and reset the hearing.

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¶6 Again, there was no mention of a plea offer during the

discussion with the court. But defense counsel later indicated that

while the parties were there, she discussed the plea offer with the

prosecutor and with Barron. She specified that the prosecutor had

said the original offer would remain open until the next hearing

date and that she and Barron needed more time to discuss it.

¶7 That same day, the prosecutor filed an amended complaint

and information adding another count of aggravated robbery

against a second victim.

¶8 A few days before the next hearing date in October, Barron

apparently discussed the case with his counsel and decided to

accept the prosecutor’s offer. But before his counsel communicated

his acceptance to the prosecutor, the prosecutor revoked the offer.

Accordingly, on the October hearing date, defense counsel sought

and obtained a continuance to determine how to proceed.

¶9 In November, Barron requested a hearing under People v.

Bergerud, 223 P.3d 686 (Colo. 2010), to replace his public defender

with alternate defense counsel. Barron cited the public defender’s

failure to communicate his acceptance of the plea offer before the

prosecutor’s revocation as the main reason for their “extreme

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differences.” The court found a conflict between Barron and his

public defender and appointed alternate defense counsel.

¶ 10 After taking some time to get up to speed on the case, Barron’s

newly appointed alternate defense counsel moved to enforce the

original plea offer. Defense counsel argued that the prosecutor’s

original offer had to be enforced because Barron detrimentally relied

on the prosecutor’s promise to hold it open when he waived his

right to a preliminary hearing within thirty-five days. The county

court held a hearing, at which it heard testimony from the originally

appointed public defender and argument from both sides. It then

found that Barron had not waived his right to a preliminary hearing

within thirty-five days in reliance on the prosecutor’s promise to

hold the plea offer open, reasoning that Barron “waived [the thirty-

five-day rule] a number of times” and “nothing before th[e] court

necessarily strongly implicates that there was in fact that

detrimental reliance, even on the [October hearing date].” The court

explained that there was no mention at the time of the waivers of

any promises to keep a plea offer open; rather, Barron’s counsel

had articulated other reasons — like waiting for discovery and

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taking time to discuss the added charge with his counsel — for his

waivers. Accordingly, the court denied the motion.

¶ 11 Eventually, the case was bound over to the district court.

Then, in November 2023, Barron pleaded guilty to a count of

aggravated robbery with a stipulated sentence of twenty-five years

in the custody of the Department of Corrections. The district court

accepted the plea and sentenced Barron accordingly.

II. Appellate Review Following a Guilty Plea

¶ 12 Barron argues that the county court erred by finding that he

didn’t detrimentally rely on the prosecutor’s promise to hold the

plea offer open. More fundamentally, he argues that his due

process rights were violated when the prosecutor rescinded the plea

offer after he had detrimentally relied on that offer when he waived

his right to a preliminary hearing within thirty-five days. See People

v. Macrander, 756 P.2d 356, 359 (Colo. 1988) (as a matter of due

process, governmental promises, such as those made in plea

negotiations, are enforceable to the extent that a defendant

detrimentally relied on them). We conclude that Barron waived this

claim when he later pleaded guilty pursuant to a different plea offer.

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¶ 13 A guilty plea generally precludes review of any issues that

arose before the plea. Neuhaus v. People, 2012 CO 65, ¶ 8. Thus,

“[a] ‘guilty plea represents a break in the chain of events [that] has

preceded it in the criminal process,’ after which a defendant may

not raise independent claims relating to the deprivation of

constitutional rights that occurred prior to the entry of the guilty

plea.” People v. Jennings, 2021 COA 112, ¶ 8 (quoting Neuhaus,

¶ 8); accord Tollett v. Henderson, 411 U.S. 258, 266-67 (1973).

¶ 14 On appeal, Barron doesn’t contend that his claim implicates

any of the limited exceptions to this general rule. See, e.g., People

v. McMurtry, 122 P.3d 237, 240 (Colo. 2005) (a guilty plea doesn’t

waive a challenge to the court’s subject matter jurisdiction, which

may be raised at any time); Patton v. People, 35 P.3d 124, 128 (Colo.

2001) (a guilty plea doesn’t waive a claim that double jeopardy

precludes the State’s prosecution of the defendant); Jennings, ¶ 26

(a guilty plea doesn’t waive a claim of actual judicial bias).

¶ 15 Rather, Barron asserts that his claim can proceed because it

“relate[s] directly to the constitutionality of the plea process itself.”

But he doesn’t in any way challenge the adequacy of his later guilty

plea. Nor does he assert that his alleged detrimental reliance earlier

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in the proceedings somehow affected the voluntary, knowing, or

intelligent character of that eventual plea. See Patton, 35 P.3d at

128 (“Because a guilty plea effectuates such an extensive waiver, a

challenge to the conviction entered thereon is normally limited to

whether the plea itself was voluntary and intelligent.”). Instead, his

argument is based on a different plea-negotiation process, with a

different counsel, that preceded his guilty plea by more than a year.

¶ 16 Because Barron is challenging an earlier plea-negotiation

process and because he hasn’t directly linked that process to his

eventual guilty plea, we conclude that just like other alleged

constitutional violations that precede a guilty plea, the claim of

detrimental reliance was waived as a result of Barron’s guilty plea.

See Jennings, ¶ 8; Neuhaus, ¶ 8; see also People v. Brooks-Singh,

849 N.Y.S.2d 363, 364 (App. Div. 2008) (the “defendant’s right to

appellate review” of any issues relating to the withdrawal of an

earlier plea offer “was forfeited by his subsequent plea of guilty”).

¶ 17 And because Barron doesn’t raise any other challenge to his

conviction — particularly whether his guilty plea was knowing,

voluntary, or intelligent — his plea must stand. See People v.

Smith, 2017 COA 12, ¶ 12 (appellate courts presume the validity of

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a judgment entered pursuant to a guilty plea); see also Mabry v.

Johnson, 467 U.S. 504, 508-10 (1984) (the defendant couldn’t

challenge the withdrawal of an earlier plea offer because he didn’t

show that his later guilty plea pursuant to a different plea offer was

not knowing, voluntary, and intelligent), overruled in part on other

grounds by, Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129 (2009).

III. Disposition

¶ 18 The judgment is affirmed.

JUDGE WELLING and JUDGE SULLIVAN concur.

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