Criminal Defense
Colorado Supreme Court: cellphone warrants must be tailored
When a 15-year-old boy said that Pamela Kay Coke had sexually assaulted him, he alleged that it had occurred in November 2018. He even showed the police text messages from the woman, including one that seemed like an apology. When the police contacted Coke at her office, they were very polite. They made it...
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Fatal crashes have increased in Colorado
Since spring, millions of Colorado residents have made the transition to working from home. Officials with the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) predicted that fatal accidents would drop correspondingly. However, the opposite is true. To the consternation and concern of the public, fatalities have increased by 20 percent. According to CDOT, distracted driving is...
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Options when facing a first criminal offense
Facing an arrest of any type is a nerve-wracking experience, but if it’s your first offense, you may also have many questions regarding what will happen to you. Will you face jail time? Will you lose your license or your job? If you are a student, you may worry about losing a scholarship or...
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Expungement or sealing
For many college students who are on the brink of finishing school, applying for jobs and landing interviews can be a rather daunting prospect. For those who were convicted of a crime before or during their time in college, the idea of looking for jobs can be even scarier. It is important to know...
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It’s 2020 and the Supreme Court just mandated unanimous juries
You probably assumed that a unanimous jury was required for a criminal conviction, but the truth is that two states had allowed non-unanimous juries in criminal cases. Louisiana and Oregon were the hold-out states, and Louisiana changed its constitution to require unanimous juries in 2018. However, people who were convicted by non-unanimous juries did...
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‘Geofence’ warrants throw out dragnets that ensnare the innocent
A Gainesville, Florida, man got a surprising email from Google in January. The company wanted him to know that local police were seeking information about his Google account and that they would release that information to the police unless the man went to court and blocked the request within seven days. It turns out...
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Study: Major FBI pattern matching method is unscientific
Many common forensic evidence-gathering techniques are less reliable than you may have been led to believe by “CSI.” In fact, some of them appear to have little scientific basis. In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report on the state of forensic science in U.S. courts. It found that “[w]ith the exception...
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Are Parole and Probation Rules Setting People Up for Failure?
People who have committed parole or probation violations make up a surprisingly large proportion of the prison population in the U.S. Some 280,000 parole or probation violators are incarcerated at any given time. In 13 states, they account for a third of all prisoners. In four states, they make up half the prison population....
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Feds increasingly cracking down on illegal possession of firearms
A year ago, a man stood outside of an Alabama church begging police to kill him. His wife said he had been suicidal and had held a gun to his head earlier so she had hidden the gun in the church. The police arrested the unarmed man and retrieved the gun. He hadn’t been...
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Mandatory Arrest Laws Can Lead to Unfair Domestic Violence Arrests
It happens more frequently than you may think: The police respond to a call about a possible domestic situation and end up making an arrest, even though no physical violence – or threat of physical violence — ever occurred. Now, something that was a heated argument with a spouse or partner has turned into...
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