Williams v. Colorado
Annotate this CaseRuth Williams allegedly stole $10,000 from her employer. She pled guilty to felony theft in exchange for a four-year deferred judgment and sentence. The district court placed her on probation for the deferral period and required that she pay $10,000 in restitution. Roughly three years into her deferred sentence, Williams had only paid about $500. Based on that failure to pay, the district attorney moved to impose judgment and sentence. The district court concluded that Williams had violated the restitution order, so it revoked the deferred judgment and entered a conviction for felony theft. Williams appealed, contending that the prosecution failed to meet its burden to prove that she had the financial ability to pay restitution. Applying Colorado Supreme Court precedent, a division of the court of appeals concluded that the prosecution had no such burden. Instead, if Williams wanted to avoid becoming a convicted felon, she had to prove that she couldn’t pay. The Supreme Court reversed: when a defendant introduces some evidence of an inability to pay restitution. A district court must make ability-to-pay findings pursuant to 18-1.3-702(3)(c), C.R.S. (2019), before revoking a deferred judgment for failure to pay. Furthermore, the Court held the prosecution bore the burden of proving by a preponderance the defendant had an ability to comply with the restitution order without undue hardship to the defendant or the defendant's dependents; and defendant had not made a goof-faith effort to comply. Because Williams introduced some evidence of an inability to pay, the Supreme Court remanded for a new deferred judgment revocation hearing.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.