07/06/2021
DA 20-0310
Case Number: DA 20-0310
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MONTANA
2021 MT 170N
CLINTON TODD SPROLES,
Petitioner and Appellant,
v.
STATE OF MONTANA,
Respondent and Appellee.
APPEAL FROM: District Court of the Second Judicial District,
In and For the County of Butte/Silver Bow, Cause No. DV 20-63
Honorable Kurt Krueger, Presiding Judge
COUNSEL OF RECORD:
For Appellant:
Clinton Todd Sproles, Self-represented, Deer Lodge, Montana
For Appellee:
Austin Knudsen, Montana Attorney General, Mardell Ployhar, Assistant
Attorney General, Helena, Montana
Eileen Joyce, Silver Bow County Attorney, Kelli Fivey, Deputy County
Attorney, Butte, Montana
Submitted on Briefs: April 14, 2021
Decided: July 6, 2021
Filed:
cir-641.—if
__________________________________________
Clerk
Justice Dirk Sandefur delivered the Opinion of the Court.
¶1 Pursuant to Section I, Paragraph 3(c), Montana Supreme Court Internal Operating
Rules, we decide this case by memorandum opinion. It shall not be cited and does not
serve as precedent. Its case title, cause number, and disposition will be included in our
quarterly list of noncitable cases published in the Pacific Reporter and Montana Reports.
¶2 Petitioner/Appellant Clinton Todd Sproles (Sproles) appeals the May 2020
judgment of the Montana Second Judicial District Court, Silver Bow County, denying his
February 2020 petition for postconviction relief from his December 2017 conviction on the
offense of felony Driving Under the Influence (DUI) in violation of § 61-8-401, MCA. We
affirm.
¶3 Following his arrest in Silver Bow County on February 25, 2017, the State charged
Sproles with felony DUI by Information filed March 16, 2017. At the time, Sproles had
twenty prior DUI convictions from 1980 through 2008. Upon his district court arraignment
on April 6, 2017, he pled guilty as charged. Later that day, the State filed a notice of intent
to seek treatment of him as a “persistent felony offender” (PFO), as defined and provided
by §§ 46-1-202(18)(a), (b)(ii) and previously by § 46-18-501, MCA (2015), based on his
July 2016 release from prison on parole on his last felony DUI conviction in 2008.
¶4 Prior to sentencing, Sproles filed a motion to strike the State’s PFO notice as
untimely under § 46-13-108(1), MCA (requiring notice of intent to seek PFO treatment “at
or before the [pretrial] omnibus hearing” provided by § 46-13-110, MCA). The motion
further asserted that the recent ameliorative revision of the PFO scheme by the 2017
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Legislature1 should retroactively apply, rather than the 2015 PFO statutes in effect at the
time of his commission of the offense and subsequent guilty plea. In response to Sproles’
informal pro se request to the court following a hearing on his motion to strike the PFO
notice, the District Court conducted another hearing, this time affording him the
opportunity to withdraw his guilty plea. However, at the hearing, he twice unequivocally
stated that, after consulting with his counsel, he no longer desired to withdraw his plea.
After the District Court later issued a written order denying his motion to strike the PFO
notice, sentencing proceeded, and the Court sentenced Sproles as a PFO to a 25-year prison
term in accordance with the 2015 PFO statutes. Sproles subsequently appealed based on
the sole assertion that he was erroneously sentenced as a PFO under the 2015 PFO statutes,
rather than the 2017 PFO statutes. See State v. Sproles (Sproles I), 2019 MT 197N, ¶¶ 5-7,
397 Mont. 553,
455 P.3d 444. We affirmed, however, holding that he was correctly
sentenced as a PFO under the 2015 PFO statutes. Sproles I, ¶¶ 5-7 (citing State v. Thomas,
2019 MT 155, ¶¶ 9-10,
396 Mont. 284,
445 P.3d 777).
¶5 In October 2019, Sproles filed a district court petition for postconviction relief from
his 2017 conviction pursuant to Title 46, chapter 21, MCA. The petition asserted four
separate claims for relief: (1) “actual innocence”; (2) that the district court erroneously
sentenced him as a PFO based on a procedurally untimely PFO notice; (3) ineffective
assistance of trial and appellate counsel; and (4) “insufficiency of the evidence” on the
1
See 2017 Mont. Laws ch. 321, §§ 23, 29, and 40 (codified as §§ 46-1-202(18) and 46-18-502,
MCA (2017) and repealing § 46-18-501, MCA (2015)).
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elements of the convicted offense. However, the District Court summarily denied the
petition pursuant to § 46-21-201(1)(a), MCA (implicitly authorizing summary dismissal if
the petition, case files, and case records “conclusively show that the petitioner is not
entitled to relief”). The court specifically denied the PFO claim based on the procedural
bar of § 46-21-105(2), MCA. Sproles timely appealed pro se on the sole asserted ground
that the District Court erroneously denied his PFO claim that he was illegally or otherwise
erroneously sentenced as a PFO on his 2017 conviction based on a procedurally untimely
PFO notice in violation of § 46-13-108(1), MCA (requiring notice of intent to seek PFO
treatment “at or before the [pretrial] omnibus hearing” provided by § 46-13-110, MCA).
¶6 Under Montana law, postconviction relief is an available remedy for “[a] person
adjud[icated] guilty of an offense in a court of record” based on a “violation of the
constitution or the laws of this state or the constitution of the United States” and who “has
no adequate remedy of appeal.” Section 46-21-101(1), MCA. However, as pertinent here,
assertions of error for which the petitioner was “afforded the opportunity for” “direct
appeal” and which “were or could reasonably have been raised on direct appeal may not
be raised, considered, or decided” on petition for postconviction relief. Section
46-21-105(2), MCA. A district court may summarily deny and dismiss a PCR petition
without response or hearing if the petition and case “files and records” “conclusively show
that the petitioner is not entitled to relief.” See § 46-21-201(1)(a), MCA; Herman v. State,
2006 MT 7, ¶ 15,
330 Mont. 267,
127 P.3d 422.
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¶7 Here, the question of whether Sproles was illegally or otherwise erroneously
sentenced as a PFO on his 2017 felony DUI conviction based on a procedurally untimely
PFO notice in violation of § 46-13-108(1), MCA, was a mixed question of fact and law
subject to review on direct appeal. See § 46-20-104, MCA, and M. R. App. P. 6(1) and
(2). He availed himself of his right to appeal but, for whatever reason, did not raise this
appealable issue. Sproles I, ¶¶ 5-7. We accordingly hold that the District Court correctly
denied Sproles’ PCR claim, regarding the timeliness and validity of the State’s PFO notice,
pursuant to the procedural bar of §§ 46-21-105(2) and -201(1)(a), MCA.
¶8 Pursuant to Section I, Paragraph 3(c), Montana Supreme Court Internal Operating
Rules, we decide this case by memorandum opinion. It shall not be cited and does not
serve as precedent. The case title, cause number, and disposition will be included in our
quarterly list of noncitable cases published in the Pacific Reporter and Montana Reports.
¶9 Affirmed.
/S/ DIRK M. SANDEFUR
We concur:
/S/ MIKE McGRATH
/S/ BETH BAKER
/S/ INGRID GUSTAFSON
/S/ JIM RICE
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