Former U.S. Forest Service employee Terry Barton, who started the largest wildfire in Colorado history, Thursday asked the Colorado Supreme Court to stop a judge from seating a jury which would determine if her actions could warrant a lengthy, aggravated sentence.
On Jan. 6, 2003, Barton pleaded guilty to a state charge of fourth-degree arson, admitting that she knowingly or recklessly started the fire. Two months later, she was given a 12-year, aggravated sentence. But that sentence was later thrown out by the Colorado Court of Appeals which said that under the circumstances, only a jury, not a judge, could impose a sentence in the aggravated range.
The case was then returned to Teller County District Judge Tom Kennedy for re-sentencing.
On Jan. 17, Kennedy ordered that a jury be impaneled to determine if Barton’s actions on June 8, 2002, were aggravated.
Prosecutors have claimed there were numerous aggravating factors surrounding Barton’s actions. Kennedy said that if the new jury finds that prosecutors proved anyone of the five aggravators, he would then consider whether Barton should be re-sentenced in the aggravated range.
But Joan Mounteer, Barton’s appellate attorney, argued Thursday that the Colorado Court of Appeals explicitly said Barton could only be sentenced up to six years, the maximum in the normal sentencing range. Mounteer also said there are no laws in Colorado which support Kennedy’s impaneling of a jury, that impaneling a jury would constitute double jeopardy or multiple punishments for the same crime, and would deny Barton her due process rights.
Mounteer said that the Supreme Court’s intervention is critical.
“This court must exercise its supervisory powers now over all Colorado district courts to stop district judges from creating ‘out of whole cloth a system of sentencing-jury trials that would not only be impractical, but that would, more importantly, be completely unauthorized’,” she said.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-820-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
