adams county
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Adams County assault conviction overturned for improper testimony
Colorado’s second-highest court overturned a man’s assault conviction and seven-year prison sentence last week, concluding an Adams County judge admitted improper testimony from a nurse who documented the victim’s account. After the alleged assault, the victim went to a hospital by ambulance. She spoke to an emergency medical technician about her injuries, which was recorded…
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Colorado Supreme Court to hear cases on rezoning via ballot box, defaulting defendants
The justices may also intervene in two ongoing criminal cases
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Appeals court says custody dispute must terminate if one parent dies
Colorado’s second-highest court clarified last month that an unresolved custody dispute must terminate when one parent dies, with the surviving parent automatically receiving custody. A three-judge Court of Appeals panel determined it was a mistake to allow an Adams County custody case between a mother and father to continue after the mother’s death, with the…
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Appeals court rejects allegations of racial discrimination in jury selection in 2 cases
Colorado’s second-highest court ruled last month that prosecutors in two cases did not engage in intentional racial discrimination when they dismissed two women of color from the jury pool. Under longstanding U.S. Supreme Court precedent, purposeful race-based discrimination in jury selection is unconstitutional. Normally, parties may exercise “peremptory strikes” of jurors without citing a reason.…
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Colorado justices say judge had no grounds to order defendant to turn over info to prosecution
The Colorado Supreme Court agreed on Monday that a trial judge had no authority to order a defendant to give the prosecution a preview of what his expert witness would say at a hearing to challenge his murder convictions. In contrast to direct appeals of criminal convictions, defendants may pursue postconviction relief in the trial courts for…
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Appeals court says requirement that parents be ‘present’ during child interrogations does not mean ‘attentive’
Colorado’s second-highest court ruled on Thursday that the requirement for parents to be present when police interrogate their child in custody means only that the parent must be “physically present,” not “mentally present” as well. Under the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Miranda v. Arizona, law enforcement is required to inform a suspect of their rights…
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Colorado Supreme Court says license plate corresponding to other vehicle is grounds for stopping driver
An Adams County deputy’s discovery that the license plates on a vehicle were registered to another car provided him the reasonable suspicion required to detain the driver, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Monday. However, the justices stopped short of deeming the subsequent vehicle search constitutional, as the trial judge had not yet evaluated whether…
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Appeals judge suggests legislature clarify law providing compensation to exonerated defendants
A member of Colorado’s second-highest court suggested last month that lawmakers clarify whether defendants are only supposed to be eligible for compensation when they are innocent of the specific crime they were convicted of, even if there is evidence their conduct still amounted to a different crime. In 2013, the legislature passed the Exoneration Act,…
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Magistrates, lawyers discuss youth, guns and responses to school safety
Adams County Magistrate Michal Lord-Blegen was a school administrator in Aurora when two teenagers killed 13 people and themselves at Columbine High School in 1999. The massacre was a lens through which she viewed her subsequent work as a principal and as a lawyer. “We’ve got a lot of kids with guns,” said Lord-Blegen earlier this…
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Adams County murder conviction overturned for unreliable identification of suspect
Colorado’s second-highest court last week overturned a man’s murder conviction and ordered a new trial after finding a witness’s identification, based on a suggestive photo array, was unreliable and should have been excluded from trial. On the night of Jan. 30, 2018, two men fought with Ricardo Rivas in the parking lot of his Westminster…