People v. Johnson, 780 P.2d 504 (Colo. 1989)

Cases | People v. Johnson, 780 P.2d 504 (Colo. 1989) | 2018

Defendant operated a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor and caused serious bodily injury to his passenger. Defendant was convicted of vehicular assault. The district court denied the district attorney’s request for restitution, finding that the matter should be brought before civil jurisdiction because there was a good probability that comparative negligence would be assessed against the passenger. The district attorney appealed, claiming that the district court erred as a matter of law in refusing to impose a restitution obligation on defendant and to include the amount of restitution in the mittimus. The supreme court vacated the judgment and remanded to trial court with directions to conduct a hearing for the purpose of determining the amount of restitution that defendant was obliged to pay and to include the amount in the judgment of conviction and endorse it upon the mittimus. The statutory scheme did not require the sentencing court to determine a defendant's criminal liability for restitution in accordance with the strict rules of damages applicable to a civil case. Rather, the supreme court read Colo. Rev. Stat. § 16-11-102(4) simply to require the sentencing court to fix the defendant's criminal liability for restitution by considering the victim's actual monetary losses and, where appropriate, to temper the defendant's restitution obligation by considering his financial ability to pay and his duty of support owed to dependents and any other outstanding family responsibilities.