1. The Defendant was charged with a crime and received his Constitutional due process (fair trial; lawyer; confront witnesses; remain silent; etc...)
2. Defendant was convicted and pursuant to that ordered to pay: court costs, fees and restitution (make the victims whole).
A. This is where it starts to get a little tricky...what if the defendant pays, but the conviction is later overturned?
3. The situation in A is accounted for through the Colorado Revised Statutes, specifically, the Exoneration Act. In short, the Act lays our the procedure for all refunds pursuant to A above.
4. Essentially it is this law/procedure that is being challenged for Constitutionality by the Defendants.
5. The majority of Justice's opined that upon the overturn of the conviction the defendant's are automatically entitled to their refund as a matter of law.
6. (5) above is what Thomas seems to take issue with: 1.) Colorado law doesn't provide for automatic return of funds upon overturning a conviction, in fact the law in question says the opposite, and 2.) The Colorado law doesn't violate due process (this is both an interesting and clever legal argument he lays out, see below)
Thomas' due process argument: Constitutional due process only applies when their is a Governmental deprivation of life, liberty or property. Here the defendant's received due process when their property was originally deprived. At that point moving forward, under the law, the Defendant lost his property rights and there is no State law that restores those property rights upon overturning the underlying conviction. What is really dramatic about Thomas' dissent, is that since the defendant has no property rights, the defendant isn't even entitled to any due process to reclaim the funds. In other words he believes the Colorado Exoneration Act is not only Constitutional but it goes above and beyond any legal requirements whereas the Defendant's don't even have a Constitutional Right to a process to reclaim property they lost rights - basically the Defendant's already have a due process and legally they aren't even entitled to that.