Judge David Karpel
-
Arapahoe County murder prosecution botched a second time as appeals court reverses for same mistake
Colorado’s second-highest court reversed a man’s felony murder conviction for the second time on Thursday after an Arapahoe County prosecutor made the same mistake that triggered reversal of the defendant’s first conviction years earlier. Although David Alberto Garcia was not the person who shot Eduardo Hernandez-Zuniga in an Aurora motel room, a jury convicted him…
-
Divided Colorado Supreme Court upholds police’s pat-down of man in ‘wrong place at the wrong time’
The Colorado Supreme Court decided on Tuesday that police had not unlawfully seized a man when they patted him down in a chance encounter after he suddenly appeared outside the motel room where they were preparing to make an arrest. By 5-2, the justices believed Oscar Jonas Ganaway consented to the pat-down search, which resulted in…
-
Colorado Supreme Court rules police-guided text messages from victim’s father did not coerce defendant
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a text message exchange between the father of an alleged child sex assault victim and the defendant was not coercive, even though a sheriff’s investigator was guiding the accusatory texts. Patrick Nkongolo stands accused of five counts of sexual assault on a child. His alleged victim told…