May 8, 2026 Case Summaries

You cannot get “discovery” under Rule 16 in a postconviction proceeding. Instead, you have a constitutional right to disclosure of information. This will almost always require the prosecution to turn over a duplicate copy of the discovery they provided to prior counsel when there is a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. And there is no need to resort to the CCJRA to get that copy of the pretrial discovery.

The trial court excluded evidence because the officers did not turn on their body worn cameras. The government filed an interlocutory appeal. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal because C.A.R. 4.1 does not authorize the prosecution to file an interlocutory appeal to review a district court’s order granting a defendant’s pretrial motion to exclude evidence under section 24-31-902.

Erlinger announced a new procedural rule of constitutional law that cannot be applied in an untimely and successive postconviction proceeding.

In a violation of protection order proceeding, the trial court erred by taking judicial notice of the fact that the defendant, Noel King, was the same person as the Noel King who was advised of the mandatory protection orders in court, because the issue of identity was subject to reasonable dispute.

A drug deal went bad, and Garcia was charged with armed robbery and felony murder. The trial court reversibly erred by permitting the prosecution to admit evidence that Garcia liked guns to establish that he was armed at the time of the robbery. This was highly prejudicial evidence that was only relevant to the improper inference that Garcia was a reckless and dangerous person who always carried a gun and, therefore, was more likely to act in conformity with that character on the day of the robbery.

The postconviction court erred in finding Bobian had not established Strickland prejudice where appellate counsel failed to alert the division of the new Wells-Yates opinion issued three days before the division denied his appellate claim that he was entitled to an extended proportionality review. They reversed and remanded for further findings because the trial court failed to make factual findings relating to whether appellate counsel’s performance was deficient.

The district court reversibly erred (under a plain error standard) by allowing the prosecutor to cross-examine Higdon about, and comment during closing argument on, his partial post-Miranda silence.

Despite the prosecutor clearly misstating the law in closing argument on the crucial issue, the majority affirms because they claimed there was overwhelming evidence of guilt based on a legal theory not advanced below. Judge Taubman provides a righteous dissent that is helpful to those litigating prosecutorial misconduct.

Keep an eye out for Denver Officers Stupor and Finnegan who were disciplined for inadequately investigating a domestic violence situation.

Correcting the illegal probationary sentence Selders was serving did not violate his due process rights. While this result was bad, the legal arguments might prove helpful.

Absent unusual circumstances, where the government alleges a person actually (not constructively) possessed a gun, the element of knowledge (knowingly possessed a gun) is not at issue, and admitting evidence of prior gun possession is propensity evidence that violates FRE 404(b).