Colorado § 18-1.3-601 - Legislative declaration.

§ 18-1.3-601. Legislative declaration.

(1) The general assembly finds and declares that:

(a) Crime victims endure undue suffering and hardship resulting from physical injury, emotional and psychological injury, or loss of property;

(b) Persons found guilty of causing such suffering and hardship should be under a moral and legal obligation to make full restitution to those harmed by their misconduct;

(c) The payment of restitution by criminal offenders to their victims is a mechanism for the rehabilitation of offenders;

(d) Restitution is recognized as a deterrent to future criminality;

(e) An effective criminal justice system requires timely restitution to victims of crime and to members of the immediate families of such victims in order to lessen the financial burdens inflicted upon them, to compensate them for their suffering and hardship, and to preserve the individual dignity of victims;

(f) Former procedures for restitution assessment, collection, and distribution have proven to be inadequate and inconsistent from case to case;

(g) The purposes of this part 6 are to facilitate:

(I) The establishment of programs and procedures to provide for and collect full restitution for victims of crime in the most expeditious manner; and

(II) The effective and timely assessment, collection, and distribution of restitution requires the cooperation and collaboration of all criminal justice agencies and departments;

(h) An insurance company, as part of its business operations, compensates a direct victim of a crime due to the contractual relationship between the insurance company and victim whereby the victim pays the insurance company a premium and the insurance company compensates the victim for losses sustained. In these instances, criminal restitution to make direct victims whole must be prioritized, while insurance companies should recover their losses through remedies other than criminal restitution orders. However, an insurance company that is a direct victim of a crime must be made whole through the criminal restitution process, including if the insurance company is a victim of a scheme to defraud the insurance company or when the insurance company's property is damaged or stolen by criminal acts.

(2) It is the intent of the general assembly that restitution be ordered, collected, and disbursed to the victims of crime and their immediate families. Such restitution will aid the offender in reintegration as a productive member of society. This part 6 shall be liberally construed to accomplish all such purposes.

Source: L. 2002: Entire article added with relocations, p. 1419, § 2, effective October 1. L. 2026: (1)(h) added, (HB 26-1017), ch. 33, p. 143, § 1, effective August 12.

Editor's note: This section is similar to former § 16-18.5-101 as it existed prior to 2002.

ANNOTATION

Because of the importance of requiring defendants to pay victims restitution, as expressed in this section, the doctrine of abatement ab initio does not apply to civil judgments created by restitution orders. When defendant died after conviction and entry of the order of restitution, but before determination of the direct appeal, the common law doctrine of abatement ab initio applied to defendant's conviction. Because of the importance of protecting the rights of victims, however, the restitution order, which created a civil judgment under § 18-1.3-603 (4)(a), was not subject to abatement but could be appealed by defendant's estate. People v. Daly, 313 P.3d 571 (Colo. App. 2011), overruled in People v. Johnson, 2021 CO 79, 499 P.3d 1045.

When a defendant dies while his criminal conviction is pending on direct appeal, the doctrine of abatement ab initio extinguishes a restitution order entered as part of his sentence. People v. Johnson, 2020 COA 124, 487 P.3d 1262, aff'd, 2021 CO 79, 499 P.3d 1045 (overruling People v. Daly, 313 P.3d 571 (Colo. App. 2011)).