By David Grant Long

The Colorado Supreme Court recently decided a Dolores man who received a 20-year prison sentence in 1993 for sexually molesting a child will have to serve the remainder of his time without the chance for a new trial.

After escaping twice from the Montezuma County Jail and being recaptured, Dennis Kyler, now 42, had ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust, as well as one count of escape. He had originally been charged with multiple counts of sexual assault on four different children ranging in age from 7 to 14.

Kyler, who had previous convictions for sexual offenses and escape in California, was also charged with two felony counts of escape. However, he later maintained the inhumane conditions under which he was confined had compelled him to plead guilty when, in fact, he was innocent of the assault charges and had only fled from jail to obtain competent legal counsel after receiving bad advice from the public defender.

In his first bid for freedom, Kyler and another inmate who later pleaded guilty to attempted murder kicked out a screen on the wall of the jail’s exercise yard and managed to stay at large for nearly a month, finally being re-arrested in California during a routine traffic stop. In the second escape, he removed a plumbing panel from the wall of his cell and climbed to an attic area, then got out through a ventilation vent.

That time Kyler was found the following day hiding in a ditch along a county road and was kept in handcuffs and leg shackles during the day and chained to his bunk at night after he was again returned to the poorly designed jail, from which several other prisoners have contrived various escape routes over the years. After 10 days of this confinement, he agreed to the plea bargain and entered the state prison system.

Kyler stated in court during his sentencing that his guilty pleas were being made voluntarily, but later maintained they had been coerced by the allegedly inhumane and unconstitutional conditions under which he was being detained. At a district-court hearing in which he asked to withdraw his guilty plea, Kyler claimed he’d been in such great and constant discomfort from the chains and the resulting lack of sleep that he would have agreed to plead guilty to just about any crime to get sent elsewhere.

Last year the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that Kyler had been improperly shackled by the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Department and ordered further hearings to determine if his pleas had been the result of this treatment.

But earlier this month the Supreme Court overturned that ruling, saying that whether the shackling was a violation of Kyler’s rights is not the issue.

"The constitutionality of a defendant’s restraints at the time of entry of his pleas is not relevant to determine whether he entered the plea voluntarily," the high court declared.

The Supreme Court’s decision affirmed the earlier ruling of the 22nd Judicial District Court, which held that Kyler had not complained about the shackling or mentioned he was in pain when entering the pleas.

A woman who later confessed to helping Kyler make his getaway after his first breakout told police he’d forced her to drive him and the other escapee out of town by threatening to harm her 12-year-old daughter, whom he noted was "a pretty little girl."