Author: Mario Nicolais
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Nicolais: High time for feds to allow marijuana banks
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Marijuana is here to stay. Not just in Colorado — the butt of many envious jokes for the past few years — but across the country. Medical marijuana is legal in 18 states. Oregon and Alaska recently became the third and fourth states to legalize recreational use, while several others have de-criminalized by replacing criminal…
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Nicolais: Merry Kwanukah! The holiday season legal conundrum
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When Thanksgiving gives way to December, frantic shopping expeditions, decorative lights, relatives at airports, office parties and an extra 10 pounds due to gift baskets and cookies, the legal community often looks back fondly to the gift that never stops giving: debate over the place for religion in the public square. On one side is…
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Nicolais: In Wake of Planned Parenthood attack, both sides prepare for coming court battle
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As Coloradans remain shocked and saddened by the deadly attack that took place at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, the women’s health care provider most directly associated with abortion services is bracing for bigger headlines during the coming Supreme Court session. While law enforcement sifts through the crime scene and undertakes what will…
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Nicolais: Jury nullification movement in spotlight in Colorado
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“God gives air to men; the law sells it to them.” — Victor Hugo, Les Miserables Such is the disdain proponents of jury nullification feel toward laws and prosecutions they believe to be unjust. Generally the province of a small but passionate and vocal few, jury nullification found itself in headlines and on editorial pages…
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Nicolais: Specialty courts meet specific needs
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Unless you are a regular in Colorado courts — offender, attorney or judge — walking into a modern courtroom might leave you with a sense of chaos and confusion. The sensation can be amplified in criminal courts as prosecutors and public defenders shuffle through case files they saw for the first time just five minutes…
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Nicolais: Death penalty needs debate
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The outcomes in the Aurora Theater Shooting and the Fero’s Bar & Grill trials brought Colorado’s death penalty to the forefront over the past few months. The process and eventual sentences of James Holmes and Dexter Lewis have been scrutinized, reviewed and opined upon everywhere from water coolers to the editorial pages of almost every…
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Nicolais: Real justice at risk of being sacrificed to mob rule
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“The mob is the mother of tyrants.” – Diogenes As true today as it was in the Greek philosopher’s time 2,500 years ago, the exponential increase in communication during the digital age has created an environment where instances of mob justice occur almost weekly. The growing prevalence threatens to undermine the formal judicial system. The…
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Time to consider data-driven justice system?
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Big data is a big deal to more and more industries and professions. Financial firms have crunched reams of numbers for decades. Barak Obama dedicated a whole floor of his campaign to data-driven decision-making. And of course, baseball — and every other major sport — has followed the sabermetric path blazed by Billy Beane. So,…
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Nicolais: Voter equality up for review in Supreme Court
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One person, one vote. For 50 years, those four words have been shorthand for the constitutional protection afforded Americans’ right to vote from improper dilution. The slogan is easy, elegant, and simple. It implies basic fairness and democratic rights. The meaning of this principle has seemingly been beyond dispute. But some Texas voters think otherwise,…
