News & Blogs

Alison Gordon is a current 3L J.D. candidate at the University of Colorado, School of Law with a strong interest in juvenile justice, child welfare, criminal defense, and family law.  She is a 2018 Bergstrom Child Welfare Law Fellow, a NACC legal intern, as well as law clerk at the Polansky Law Firm. Alison attended […]

Expungement is a legal order that allows a person to claim that they have no juvenile delinquency record. Expungement is similar to the sealing of criminal records. But, expungement is a special process that only applies to a person’s juvenile record. Recently, the Colorado Legislature has changed expungement laws in an effort to simplify them. […]

Our society and our laws treat the magic age of eighteen as a bright line in many ways. When it comes to the justice system, we have two separate courts for children and adults.  While it may seem that any trouble you get into as a child should be inconsequential, the effects of having a […]

Military service members, just like civilians, are subject to the local and federal criminal laws of the United States. However, service members are also subject to the US Armed Forces’ own set of laws and rules which is separate and apart from the civilian criminal justice system.  The Manual for Courts-Martial is an Executive Order […]

A felony conviction under state and federal law carries a huge number of collateral consequences of which many individuals accepting plea bargains are totally unaware.  Some of these consequences restrict eligibility for welfare and entitlement programs, but others sever fundamental constitutional rights. For example, the right to vote is stripped of anyone serving a prison […]

Even though both recreational and medical marijuana are legal in Colorado, state law is very clear that driving while high is illegal. Having a medical marijuana card is not a defense to driving under the influence (DUI). On the other hand, the DUI statute CRS 42-4-1301 provides that having a medical marijuana card is not […]

On June 25, 2012, the Supreme Court decided Miller v. Alabama, holding that sentencing children to life without parole, without first considering the mitigating effects of youth, was cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. Instead of settling the matter of mandatory juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) sentencing, this […]

Despite the passage of Amendment 64, the federal law still outlaws the possession or cultivation of marijuana.  While there is an informal policy not to enforce the federal law in Colorado and other states with comparable laws, there have been federal prosecutions against growers with over 100 plants.  With the Presidential election soon approaching, it […]

In April 2014, the Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole announced a new Clemency Iniative through the Department of Justice to the President of the United States whereby persons convicted of federal crimes can petition the President for relief under certain circumstances.  Our firm is qualified to prepare and file such a petition on behalf […]

DENVER (CBS4) – “I was just sent to prison… for a crime I never committed,” Lorenzo Montoya says. At 29 years old, he has spent nearly half his life behind bars. But today he’s a free man, after making a deal with the Denver District Attorney’s Office. Back in 2000, the then young teenager was […]