October 23, 2026 Commentary on Recent Cases of Interest

The defense served CBI with a Rule 17 SDT to get information related to CBI’s green-lighting of Missy Woods’ misconduct. CBI moved to quash, and the trial court denied the motion to quash. CBI filed a Rule 21 petition. The Court found the district court erred in its analysis and remanded for a do-over with further guidance based on its judicial gloss on Rule 17 and the new FSIA provision.

The trial court erred by excluding Nguyen’s expert’s testimony that Nguyen suffered from PTSD. In a case where the only real dispute concerned Nguyen’s mental state, the error violated Nguyen’s constitutional right to present a complete defense. The government failed to carry its burden to prove the error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, and reversal was required.

During voir dire, a juror stated she could not be fair because of the trauma she experienced from being a crime victim. Ritchie challenged the juror for cause. The prosecutor objected because she remembered the juror stating she could be fair and impartial. The judge sided with the prosecutor and denied the challenge for cause. In so doing, the trial court reversibly erred because no one rehabilitated the juror and the juror never stated that she could be fair and impartial. Because the juror sat on the panel that convicted Ritchie, reversal was required.

Issue #1: The district court erred by summarily denying Martinez’s claim that trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by misadvising him on how much time he would serve if he accepted the prosecution’s 50-year plea offer, causing him to reject a plea offer he otherwise would have accepted. As such, they remanded for a hearing on this claim. Issue #2: Martinez’s request for a proportionality review of his F1 kidnapping LWOP sentence was barred as successive since it could have been raised as plain error on direct appeal.

This is a good reminder that when conducting an extended proportionality review analysis, the second portion requires the trial court to compare the sentencing consequences in other jurisdictions – that is, jurisdictions other than Colorado (i.e., other states)– NOT other jurisdictions inside of Colorado (i.e., counties).