A judge recently reduced a Powell woman’s prison sentence by roughly six months — although he lacked the authority to do so under the state’s rules of criminal procedure.

Fifth Judicial District Court Judge Steven Cranfill of Cody erroneously allowed Kelsey B. Munsinger to be released from prison and placed on parole last month; without the ruling, the 25-year-old Munsinger would not have become eligible for parole until March, Wyoming Department of Corrections records say.

The problem with Cranfill’s order is that Wyoming’s Rules of Criminal Procedure say — and the Wyoming Supreme Court has consistently ruled — that judges can only modify a defendant’s sentence if the request is made within a year of when the sentence was first imposed.

In this case, Cranfill acted on a request Munsinger made on Aug. 10. That was more than five months past the one-year deadline.

On Tuesday, Cranfill declined to comment on the error, which was caught by the Tribune.

Munsinger had previously asked for a reduced sentence in August 2015 — well within the one-year window — but Cranfill and another judge had each denied her request at that time.

It’s fairly common for defendants to make a tardy plea for leniency.

Just days before Cranfill granted Munsinger’s request for a reduced sentence in late August, fellow Fifth Judicial District Court Judge Robert Skar denied a similar request from Cody resident Nick Meng because it came more than two years after his sentencing date. (Meng is serving a six- to 10-year prison sentence for manufacturing designer drugs.)

Cranfill himself rejected a former Powell resident’s request for a reduction last year for coming one month too late.

Jared Good received a one- to three-year prison sentence for auto burglary in September 2014 as part of a plea deal. He asked Cranfill for a reduced sentence in March 2015, was turned down, then asked again in an October 2015 letter — some 13 months after his sentencing.

Deputy Park County Attorney Tim Blatt objected to a reduction, noting Good’s request fell outside of the one-year window laid out in the state’s rules.

Cranfill agreed.

“The court finds the defendant’s motion for sentence reduction is untimely, and this court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to consider the motion,” the judge ruled, citing Supreme Court precedent and generally adopting the arguments made by Blatt.

Munsinger’s case began in 2009, and she originally received a deferral on a count of delivering marijuana, giving her an opportunity to avoid a felony conviction. However, between her 2010 sentencing and early 2015, court records say she repeatedly got into trouble for abusing controlled substances.

When she came before District Court Judge David Park for sentencing on another probation violation, Park County Prosecuting Attorney Bryan Skoric said it was the fifth time his office had sought to revoke Munsinger’s probation.

Skoric argued for a four- to six-year prison sentence. Munsinger and her defense attorney, Nick Beduhn of Cody, asked for six months in jail, which was to be in addition to the roughly seven months she’d already served.

Judge Park went along with the prosecution’s recommendation.

“This certainly isn’t the most serious crime I have ever seen, but I don’t recall a defendant who has been so resistive to treatment,” Park said at the Feb. 23, 2015 hearing.

Munsinger asked for a reduction in August of 2015, prosecutor Skoric objected and Judge Cranfill turned her down in a boilerplate order issued in November 2015.

However, her defense attorney later asked the judge to reconsider. Beduhn noted Cranfill’s order contained an error: It said Munsinger had agreed to the prison time as part of a plea deal, when she’d actually argued for a lesser sentence.

Cranfill subsequently voided his order and said he’d leave the decision up to Judge Park.

Park then denied Munsinger’s request in March by issuing the exact same order that Cranfill had withdrawn. It included the same error, incorrectly stating that the woman had “agreed to a sentence of incarceration in a state penal institution for a period of not less than four years and not more than six years.”

Despite the denial, Munsinger continued to ask for leniency in letters to the court — including the one Cranfill received on Aug. 10. In it, she described working hard to complete the Department of Corrections’ intensive drug treatment program early and said she had a job already lined up.

Munsinger said going to prison and the treatment program “truly saved my life and opened a world of opportunities to me.”

“I’m no longer a hooligan, menace, criminal only out for myself,” she wrote. “I am a proud mother, grateful recovering addict and child of God.”

Skoric, the prosecutor, did not file an objection or other response to that request. In an interview, he said he didn’t believe his office had received a copy of Munsinger’s letter or Cranfill’s later order reducing her sentence.

In addition, “If somebody’s writing tons of letters after the court loses jurisdiction, I’m not going to respond to that, typically,” Skoric said, adding, “We operate with what the law tells us. And if the court has no jurisdiction to entertain it, and it’s previously been denied, it’s been denied.”

On Aug. 31, Cranfill directed the Department of Corrections to release Munsinger from prison once she completed the treatment program. That resulted in her release from prison on Sept. 22. Munsinger had asked to be completely freed, but Cranfill required her to serve out the rest of her sentence on department-supervised parole.