Colorado Springs Legal Issues Blog

In an effort to reduce alcohol-related accidents over the Labor Day holiday weekend, Colorado authorities are launching an anti-drunk-driving campaign called The Heat Is On. As part of the campaign, the Colorado Department of Transportation is offering BACtrack breathalyzers to the public at a 50% discount. Drivers can use the portable devices to measure their blood alcohol content levels before they get behind the wheel of a car.

During the campaign, The Colorado State Patrol and 85 local law enforcement agencies will target individuals who they suspect are driving while drunk. Nearly 940 impaired drivers were arrested during the 2018 initiative. The effort is designed to cut down on injuries and deaths caused by drunk driving crashes in the weeks leading up to Labor Day. In 2018, 209 people lost their lives in alcohol-related crashes on Colorado roads. Of those deaths, 44 occurred in August and September.

When a crime attracts a significant amount of media attention in Colorado and around the country, the detectives assigned to investigate it are often put under great pressure to make a quick arrest. Two criminologists from Texas State University say that this desire to close cases quickly can lead to investigators becoming fixated on a prime suspect to the point where they coerce confessions and ignore exculpatory evidence. They arrived at this conclusion after analyzing the case files of 50 innocent individuals who were convicted of serious crimes.

The most worrying part of the study is the number of times innocent defendants were wrongly convicted because of a false confession. Juries tend to find confessions extremely persuasive because they assume that no rational person would confess to a serious crime like murder unless they were guilty. The study is not the only data that suggests coercion is extremely common in serious crime investigations. The Innocence Project says that about a third of the individuals they have exonerated were sent to prison because they confessed.

In Colorado and other states where medicinal or recreational marijuana has been legalized, police officers are changing the way they conduct traffic stops where they suspect impaired driving. They plan to perform a variety of tests that help prove a driver is intoxicated with THC since it is tough to prove with just a blood test. They may record information related to driving behavior, smell, dilated pupils, and the presence of marijuana paraphernalia.

Before the legalization of pot in some states, a traffic stop involved a sobriety test and perhaps a breathalyzer. If marijuana was discovered, an officer would add a possession charge. Now that cannabis is legal, they will need to use more creative ways to discover if that marijuana has actually been ingested by the driver. That's why many states are training officers to recognize the signs of cannabis use.

Many cities in Colorado and other states rely on court fines and fees to balance their departmental budgets. Some defendants who are unable to pay their fines are jailed or placed on probation until they pay off the debt. This sometimes occurs even if the individual hasn't been convicted of a crime. In response, an increasing number of legal organizations are fighting to raise awareness about these practices and bring them to an end.

Back in 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to imprison people who lack the funds to pay court fines and fees. However, that hasn't stopped many cities and counties, underfunded due to their reluctance to raise taxes, from using their court systems as a revenue-generating arm. Further, when people can't pay, some counties pass the debts to for-profit debt collection companies, which add up to 30% in fees to the unpaid balance and threaten to have debtors arrested. Some of those who are jailed are forced to pay for their incarceration, creating a mountain of debt that is nearly impossible to pay off. It also causes many people to lose their jobs, lose custody of their children and get divorced.