drunk driving
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Divided state Supreme Court says juries may hear defendants’ drunk driving histories
A majority of the Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Monday that juries must learn about a defendant’s prior drunk driving offenses at the same time they hear the current allegations of drunk driving, over the strenuous objection of three justices who said the move all but ensures a conviction will occur. By 4-3, the Supreme…
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State Supreme Court continues to ponder headaches of DUI ruling
Colorado’s Supreme Court justices this week once again heard about the difficulties they created by upending prosecutions of felony drunk driving cases nearly two years ago. Although driving under the influence in Colorado is typically a misdemeanor, the legislature in 2015 established a felony DUI offense for people who have at least three prior drunk…
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State Supreme Court to examine foreclosure timeline, narrowly turns down DUI appeals
The Colorado Supreme Court has agreed to review a lower court’s ruling that banks and mortgage lenders argue gives an improper incentive to rapidly foreclose on certain homeowners. On Monday, the justices announced they will hear the case of U.S. Bank National Association v. Silvernagel, which centers on Colorado’s six-year statute of limitations for lenders to foreclose…
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State Supreme Court OK’s forced blood draws for DUI suspects
By a 6-1 decision on Monday, the Colorado Supreme Court determined state law permits police officers to obtain a warrant and forcibly draw blood from motorists who are suspected solely of driving drunk. Although the law currently enables law enforcement to draw blood in the absence of a warrant and without motorists expressing their consent…
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Appeals court says man representing himself was not crazy, but ‘sovereign citizen’
While all parties agreed that Charles James Crabtree had acted bizarrely throughout his drunken-driving case, Colorado’s second-highest court determined it was not mental illness, but rather Crabtree’s belief in the “sovereign citizen” movement that motivated his aberrant behavior. The state’s Court of Appeals consequently declined to overturn Crabtree’s conviction for driving under the influence, even…
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State Supreme Court agrees to interpret felony animal cruelty, sex offender registration laws
Colorado’s Supreme Court has agreed to interpret whether two state laws, criminalizing cruelty to animals and the failure to register as a sex offender, permit convictions to be transformed into felonies upon a judge’s findings alone, or if a jury must make that decision. Both cases came through the state’s Court of Appeals, where separate…
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Man who changed mind on DUI blood draw deserves new trial, appeals court says
A man convicted of driving under the influence in Arapahoe County refused at one point to take a blood alcohol test to determine his level of intoxication. But when he changed his mind, the test did not happen, nor did jurors learn that he ultimately agreed to a blood draw. Now, the state’s Court of…
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Forced blood draws for DUI suspects under Colorado Supreme Court scrutiny
Colorado’s Supreme Court justices appeared largely skeptical of the idea that police officers are forbidden from involuntarily drawing blood from a suspected drunk driver, even if there is a court-approved warrant to do so. During oral arguments on Thursday, the court explored the legislature’s intentions in enacting the “expressed consent law,” which established that motorists,…
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Court rules that Arapahoe prosecutor’s questions to jury were ‘fair game’
Although the prosecution’s conduct was “close to the line,” a panel of Colorado’s Court of Appeals decided by 2-1 that the government did not improperly place the burden on a defendant to prove his innocence at trial. The state’s second-highest court considered whether an Arapahoe County prosecutor’s comments to a jury so fundamentally undermined the…
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Holiday work parties with mistletoe, booze give legal hangovers, says NFIB
Bless him for forethought or curse him as a buzzkill, but the ever-cheerful Tony Gagliardi, the Colorado state director for the National Federation of Independent Business, deserves some kind of credit for the holiday advice out his home office this week. The NFIB released its wise words for holiday parties, so the small-business organization that…