Boulder Criminal Defense Blog

 Most college students quickly learn ways to get out classes without missing too much information required for tests.

While it may seem harmless to skip a class here or there, there are plenty of ways to get out of class permanently when you are living in a college town.

Many people are surprised to learn how easy it is to be charged with domestic violence in Colorado. If domestic violence is reported to the police, Colorado law requires a mandatory arrest.

As a result, many couples learn after one of them is already sitting in jail about how easy it is to be charged with domestic violence. In addition, there are potentially harsh consequences after the arrest, including the requirement of "no contact" with the alleged victim, vacating the shared home, and domestic violence classes. Here are some of the easiest ways to find yourself facing DV charges.

It's almost 2020, and cameras are everywhere. Small powerful video and audio recording devices are found on phones, doorbells, strapped to the helmets of skiers and bikers, and increasingly pinned to the chest of uniformed police officers. The vast majority of police-citizen encounters are now recorded, and what is shown in such "body worn camera" (BWC) footage (or the lack thereof) has become a major aspect of every criminal case.

BWCs are primarily provided to uniformed officers, who are trained on their use and operation and are responsible for following the police department's guidelines for their use and preserving any footage that is recorded. Officers in the Boulder Police Department who have been equipped with a BWC are required to turn on their camera when they contact a citizen while investigating any in-progress crime, suspicious incident, situation that is adversarial and may involve the use of force, and generally any other situation where it is appropriate to record and the footage documenting the incident may be of value.

Detection dogs are trained to use their senses of smell to perceive a variety of substances. Commonly used by law enforcement to sniff out the presence of illegal narcotics, the canines have come under controversy in Colorado, a state that legalized a once prohibited drug six years ago.

The issue has three key aspects: how courts have defined a dog sniff, how detection dogs are trained and the complex relationship between state and federal laws.