Category: Defense Lawyer

Police have a tough job, and one of the things that’s hardest is spotting criminals before a more serious incident occurs. What does that mean? Well, ideally you would like local law enforcement to catch a person illegally carrying a gun before they shoot someone, or to stop a drug dealer hoping to sell meth to kids before he gets to the schoolyard. Almost everyone will probably agree with that.

If you have been charged with a crime of domestic violence, the outcome of your case can have an impact on any pending or future child custody matters.  The mere fact of your being charged can also have an impact as well.

 

In Colorado, any time an incident of domestic violence occurs and a child is present, the defendant also will be charged with a count of Child Abuse

A commonly held belief is that if you are arrested and the police fail to read you your rights, your case will be invalidated and possibly dismissed.  This belief is not, however, accurate.  If police fail to read you your Miranda rights, the relevance of that failure is that the prosecutor cannot use any statements obtained from you following your arrest in their prosecution.

 

To have your Miranda rights

One legal concept I frequently get questioned about is the statute of limitations.  Different offenses have different applicable statutes of limitations, meaning that different offenses have different set time limits for the filing of charges.  Some offenses, of course, have no statute of limitations at all.  Should a statute of limitations apply and charges not be filed within the pertinent time period, then charges cannot be filed at some later

Typically, a warrant is required to search inside of a home or in the area immediately surrounding and associated with a home (an area known, legally, as the curtilage of the home).  However, there can be exceptions to that general rule.

 

One situation where a warrant is not needed to search a home is where what is known as “exigent circumstances” exist.  Exigent circumstances are an exception to the