In a second-look sentencing bill introduced in late February, Democratic state senators Julie Gonzales, of Denver, and Mike Weissman, of Aurora, seek to create a new legal process to allow judges to reduce sentences for prisoners who have spent at least 20 years behind bars and who either committed their crimes when they were younger than 21, or who are at least 60 years old.

excludes a number of convictions from automatically qualifying for the process — including first-degree murder — but allows for district attorneys to bring a petition for any prisoner at the prosecution’s discretion.

“The basic idea is that when we sentence somebody, they are sentenced based on who we understand them to be at that moment, who they have shown us to be through their conduct — and, in the cases we are talking about, that is bad conduct that there needs to be consequences for,” Weissman said. “But a second-look policy is about inviting the question, how much consequence, how many years? The question of when somebody should toll out of (the Department of Corrections) is really less a function of who the person was when they went in — in this case, at least 20 years ago — than who are they now.”

There are 137 people in Colorado state prisons who would automatically qualify to seek a sentence reduction under the bill, according to its fiscal note, and another 164 people who have served more than 20 years on first-degree murder convictions and are not automatically eligible for a sentence reduction but could still be considered with the prosecution’s support.

Prisoners would file a petition with the courts to start the process, which would proceed to a hearing in open court during which prisoners would need to prove that they are no longer a danger to society and that sentence reductions are warranted, according to the bill. Prisoners would be entitled to representation from an attorney, and crime victims would be entitled to speak at the hearing.

Judges would consider the prisoners’ age, history, behavior in prison, education and maturity, as well as the stance of the victims when weighing whether to reduce a sentence. Judges could reduce a sentence to no lower than 25 years in prison. That would likely often allow prisoners who had served 20 years to be immediately released on parole.

About have some sort of second-look sentencing law or process in place, said Dan Meyer, litigation and policy director at Spero Justice Center, a Colorado nonprofit aimed at addressing unjust sentences.

The process would open up a new chance at freedom in a state where clemency is granted in just a fraction of cases and other post-conviction relief, like the state’s Juveniles and Young Adults Convicted as Adults program, or JYACAP, is limited or stalled, Meyer said. Gov. Jared Polis has not released graduates of the state’s JYACAP since 2023.

The idea behind giving prosecutors the power to override the bill’s exemptions was to ensure that the work of district attorneys’ conviction review units — dedicated staff within prosecutors’ offices who consider post-conviction claims of innocence or, sometimes, inequity — could continue without restrictions, Meyer said.

“If the DA thinks the sentence is unjust, their hands would never be tied,” he said.

George Brauchler, district attorney in the 23rd Judicial District, said the second-look proposal undermines the will of Colorado voters, who in 2024 voted to require that people convicted of certain violent crimes serve at least 85% of their prison sentence before they become eligible for parole or good-time reductions.

“Every year this legislature finds a way to prove me right when I say this is the most offender-friendly legislature we’ve had,” he said. “Every year they say ‘hold my bong’ and they do something worse.”

The second-look process could be re-traumatizing to victims, Brauchler said. It also would put cases into the hands of judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys who likely were not involved when the defendants were sentenced decades earlier. The original judges on cases, who hear evidence and listen to testimony firsthand, are best suited to decide on sentences, he said, not a judge who comes into the process years later.

“It undermines the integrity of the system,” he said.

Legislative staff conservatively estimated that only about 19 prisoners from the current pool of qualified applicants would actually be released from prison should the bill pass. The effort is expected to cost about $400,000 because of an increased workload for Colorado’s public defenders and judicial staff — a figure that already considers that the Colorado Department of Corrections would save roughly $300,000, according to a fiscal note.

Meyer suggested that people facing decades in prison may be motivated to change for the better while incarcerated in order to earn a sentence reduction, and said the state could see longer-term savings in prison costs.

“Ultimately, for us, what second-look comes down to is the importance of hope, and not just speculative hope but having clear, measurable opportunities for people to demonstrate that they have changed their lives,” he said.

Brauchler noted that people imprisoned for 20 or more years likely committed serious crimes or were sentenced as habitual prisoners. The first purpose of sentencing is punishment, he said, not rehabilitation.

“They say, ‘This is about giving hope’ to the worst of the worst offenders,” he said. “I don’t care if they have hope. That is not why they are in prison.”

But unlike an initial version of the law that was made public in December, the county will levy no fines on retailers for failing to do so — instead leaving any decision about punishment to a local court.

The called for fines of $50, and all the way up to $1,000, for businesses that failed to report a crime. That caused some unease in the business community that Douglas County was overreaching.

Commissioner Abe Laydon said during the business meeting Tuesday that the ordinance was not meant to punish retailers but to keep the community safe.

“This is the most prosperous county in the state of Colorado — we don’t want us to become a target for organized crime,” he said. “When we tolerate organized retail theft, we normalize lawlessness.”

The increased the time — from 24 hours to 96 hours — that businesses will have to report a theft. It also allows a retailer to report a crime via an online form rather than have police called to the scene.

That was enough to allay concerns from Chris Howes, the president of the Colorado Retail Council. In an attempt to make the measure more palatable to local businesses, he said his organization had some “fruitful discussions” with the county after the law was first unveiled.

“We don’t feel it punishes retail,” he said. “The focus on retail crime is overall going to be a benefit to us.”

District Attorney George Brauchler said he wants to get the message across that “we do not tolerate thieves.”

“If you come here to steal from us, plan on staying,” he said in a statement Tuesday. “Business owners and citizens alike should know that we will continue to protect their property rights.”

Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekly said the ordinance is aimed at combating the recent trend of retail outlets, especially large ones, . The measure holds employers accountable for policies that discourage the reporting of theft and that might result in retaliation against an employee who does report a crime.

“When corporate policies prevent or discourage the reporting of theft, it limits our ability to investigate, identify patterns and hold offenders accountable,” Weekly said in a statement. “(This ordinance) reinforces the importance of timely reporting and evidence preservation while focusing on corporate entities rather than individual employees.”

The new measure takes effect April 4.

Jalin Seabron, 23, died after shot at him nine times while responding to reports of an active shooter at Main Event, striking him with seven bullets in the back and side. Seabron was not the shooter, but he was armed.

Seabron had pulled the gun out to defend his friends and family, who were celebrating his birthday with him at the arcade, 64 Centennial Blvd., according to the lawsuit.

Moore “unreasonably and recklessly charged into the scene, … without adequately evaluating the situation, utilizing a position of cover, or waiting for backup,” the lawsuit alleges. The deputy fired all nine shots within 15 seconds of arriving in the Main Event parking lot, his body camera video showed.

“H±đ˛â!” . “Drop the gun! Drop the gun! Now! Drop it!”

A woman can also be heard in the video, crying out for Moore not to shoot.

The warnings to drop the weapon happened over roughly three seconds. When Seabron didn’t immediately respond and turned his head toward Moore, not appearing to raise his weapon from his side, the deputy started shooting.

“At the time Moore opened fire, Mr. Seabron still had his back to the deputy and had just barely started to turn his head in reaction to the yelled commands,” the lawsuit stated.

Moore “wrongly assumed” Seabron was the shooter and shot him without “verifying whether Mr. Seabron actually posed a threat, or providing Mr. Seabron a reasonable opportunity to comply with commands,” the lawsuit alleges. Seabron didn’t have time to process the orders, let alone obey them, the document claims.

George Brauchler, the 23rd Judicial District Attorney, declined to file criminal charges against Moore in April 2025, after a month-long investigation into the police shooting by the district¶¶Ňőap critical incident response team, according to a he sent to Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekly.

The deputy gave Seabron several commands to drop his gun, but the commands all happened within three seconds, according to the decision letter. Moore did not verbally identify himself as law enforcement, and did not use his sirens while responding to the scene, the letter confirms.

State law allows a police officer to forgo that announcement if they believe doing so “would unduly place peace officers at risk or would create a risk of death or injury to other persons,” Brauchler said during an April news conference.

The shooting inside the Highlands Ranch arcade started as a fight in the bathroom between Seabron’s stepsister, 23-year-old Nevaeha Crowley-Sanders, and a friend she had known since high school. Authorities said Crowley-Sanders pulled out a handgun and shot at the 22-year-old victim, her friend, eight times.

Crowley-Sanders was assaulted by a group of women in the restroom and fired her gun in self-defense, ending the altercation, according to the lawsuit. The woman shot by Crowley-Sanders survived her injuries, and Crowley-Sanders was charged with attempted murder.

The first calls to 911 about the shooting came in just before midnight on Feb. 8, 2025.

When Moore arrived, roughly 90 seconds later, “no one was running, as the shooting itself was over,” the lawsuit stated. Seabron had his gun in his hand to defend himself and his group against a woman involved in the bathroom fight who had come outside after, also armed with a gun that she pointed at Seabron.

“It was clear there was no active or ongoing threat,” the lawsuit alleges. “It was apparent that the person Deputy Moore killed was not the shooter.”

The civil lawsuit filed Monday in Douglas County District Court is seeking compensation for Moore’s use of excessive force and battery causing wrongful death. Moore is listed as the sole defendant in the complaint.

Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekly joined with 23rd Judicial District Attorney George Brauchler to argue that the state law unduly limits law enforcement officers’ discretion to block applications for , a visa set aside for non-citizen victims of crime who cooperate with law enforcement and meet other conditions.

Crime victims seeking U visas must have their — that is, local officials must state that the applicants were victims of qualifying crimes and that they are helping in the investigation or prosecution of those crimes.

Federal immigration officials make the final decisions on whether or not visa applications are granted. Under federal law, victims seeking U visas must show that they have suffered physical or mental abuse due to a qualifying crime that happened in the U.S., they possess information about that crime, and they have been helpful or will be helpful to the prosecution.

No more than 10,000 U visas can be issued in any given year nationwide.

In 2021, to require that state officials consider only a victim’s helpfulness and whether they were subject to a qualifying crime when deciding whether to certify a victim’s application for a U visa. The state law also requires that officials consider a victim to be helpful unless there is documentation that the victim refused to cooperate with the case.

The that local officials are not responsible for determining whether victims meet all of the qualifications for a U visa, and instead are only responsible for certifying the applications.

Brauchler and Weekly claim in the lawsuit — filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Denver — that the state law conflicts with federal law and violates their First Amendment rights.

“I don’t think the state has the authority to order me to sign federal documents attesting to certain facts,” Brauchler said.

Brauchler declined to certify a U visa application in June because the victim’s claim of domestic violence fell outside the statute of limitations and could not be prosecuted, according to the lawsuit. Under state law, he should have passed that application on to federal immigration authorities, he claimed, because there was no documentation that the victim had not cooperated with authorities.

“What the state has done is to interpret for me what cooperation means,” he said. “So instead of me being able to suggest, ‘You can’t be helpful for me because you waited too long to bring this crime forward,’ they say, ‘You don’t get to consider this, George. You have to consider them helpful.'”

Brauchler argued that the law strips him of the discretion allowed under federal law and regulations.

“It has converted this very scarce, very valuable resource for fighting crime into a golden ticket to stay in America if you suggest you are a victim of crime,” he said.

He acknowledged that a law enforcement certification does not mean a victim’s visa application will be approved by federal authorities, but said the state law forces him to certify applications for people whom he believes should not receive U visas.

“We now flood ICE with a whole bunch of applications for them to sift through and to try to figure out how to prioritize, instead of calling our shot and saying, ‘This application actually matters to us,'” he said. referring to .

Legislators also set deadlines in the 2021 law within which Colorado officials must act on certification requests and required agencies to report data on certifications and denials to the state.

Between 2019 and 2025, 55 Colorado law enforcement agencies and district attorneys’ offices reported receiving 1,368 requests for U-visa certifications, according to records kept by the . The agencies signed off on 1,118 of those requests — approving about 82%.

Local officials most frequently denied requests because the applicant was not a victim of a qualifying criminal activity, the records show, and also denied requests because victims did not demonstrate helpfulness with the prosecution or investigation.

Neither the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office nor the 23rd Judicial District has submitted data on their offices’ certifications and denials to the state, the records show.

The 23rd Judicial District, which includes Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties, was created in January 2025 and so could not have reported the prior year’s data, Brauchler noted. He said the office will meet this year’s March 1 deadline for doing so.

A spokeswoman with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the agency’s lack of data.

The new system required many sex offenders to receive treatment in prison before they could be released — and then to continue receiving supervision once they got out. The new sentences would be open-ended, or “indeterminate,” lasting perhaps from two years at a minimum to a maximum of life — either in prison, for those who couldn’t or wouldn’t complete treatment, or on parole, for those who did.

Then-Adams County District Attorney Bob Grant praised the approach during the bill’s first committee hearing, saying it would provide treatment to sex offenders while ensuring that “the problem is going to be addressed and that that offender is not going to recidivate.”

Nearly 30 years later, as prison officials strain to hire staff and Colorado’s prisons are filling to their breaking point, the system has struggled to provide the treatment that it is, in principle, at its core.

Hundreds of inmates languish on a prison list, waiting for their turn to receive the treatment they must complete before they can be released. More than 160 of them are past their parole dates but remain incarcerated because of a yearslong shortage of therapists and resistance by state officials to allowing alternative methods of treatment. Some inmates have filed lawsuits challenging the delays, which in turn has seemingly become a tactic to move up the list.

“To me, this is a more fundamental fairness issue of, how on earth can we require people to do a program and then not deliver it — and then it¶¶Ňőap their problem and not ours?” said Laurie Rose Kepros, the director of sexual litigation for and a longtime advocate for sex offender sentencing reform.

Even as scores of inmates sit on a waitlist, nearly 2,000 people convicted of similar crimes have been released from state prisons over the last five years without having ever completed or received treatment, according to data provided by the Colorado Department of Corrections in response to a June records request.

Though they committed similar crimes as inmates who must be treated and are generally considered to be at higher risk of returning to prison, those offenders received a determinate sentence. That means their release date was certain and is not dependent upon receiving or completing treatment.

The result is a seemingly contradictory system: Treatment is effective and important enough to indefinitely stall some inmates’ release, while hundreds of others convicted of similar crimes are paroled, whether or not they’ve been seen by a therapist. The difference depends on what type of sentence is agreed to or levied by a judge. That, in turn, can depend on the experience of a defendant’s lawyer.

So chronically uncertain are some inmates’ release dates that several defense attorneys said they wouldn’t allow clients to plead guilty to indeterminate sentences.

“I wouldn’t disagree that the system does function to keep people who’ve committed sex offenses in (prison) for as long as possible. Whether it was intentionally designed that way or not — it doesn’t matter, it¶¶Ňőap what it does,” said Sarah Croog, a defense attorney and member of the state Sex Offender Management Board, which oversees standards for the prison-based treatment system.

“What it¶¶Ňőap intended to do is to lock up the most dangerous sexual offenders until they are safe to rejoin society, and to prevent them from being on the streets because they’re on some level too dangerous to be free,” she said. “That is not how it works in practicality.”

The Denver Post interviewed nearly two dozen defense lawyers, treatment experts, current and former prosecutors, victims and advocates, former inmates, and state officials for this story. The Post also reviewed more than 20 lawsuits filed by inmates challenging the treatment system, alongside hundreds of pages of reports filed by state officials about the system and attempts to address its shortcomings. Several current and former inmates who’ve struggled to access treatment declined to comment through their attorneys or would not speak on the record.

The Corrections Department declined interview requests by The Post, as did the management board’s leaders. In response to a list of written questions, Corrections spokeswoman Alondra Gonzalez-Garcia said the agency was charged with carrying out laws passed by the legislature and that people released without treatment would still be required to receive it “while under supervision in the community.”

Inmates sue, victims want clarity

In a class-action lawsuit filed last year, several inmates awaiting treatment alleged that the treatment waitlist would change suddenly and without explanation. One man told the inmates’ legal team that he’d moved from 678th on the list to 71st in the span of three weeks.

At times, an inmate’s ability to draft a competent lawsuit appeared to make the difference between receiving treatment and waiting, according to the class-action complaint and other legal challenges viewed by The Post. (In legal filings, Corrections officials have denied that lawsuits affected the waitlist.)

In a statement, the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault said victims wanted transparency and clarity, and to know when offenders would be released and under what conditions.

Determinate sentences — the ones with a certain release date — have frustrated some victims, too. In an interview, one victim told The Post that she was left “sick to my stomach” after the man who sexually assaulted her was released from prison last year without having received treatment.

He pleaded guilty in 2012 in Arapahoe County to kidnapping and sexual assault and received a determinate sentence, for which treatment wasn’t a prerequisite for release, though he was still likely referred to treatment.

“You can’t very well affect change in somebody if you don’t give them resources to try and change,” said the victim, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her identity. The Post is also not identifying the offender to protect the victim’s privacy.

“So clearly you just let a monster back out on the street with no recourse for his behavior,” she said, “except for having sat in a box for 10 years.”

Despite the treatment bottleneck, prosecutors and state officials have largely defended the system. It’s not perfect, but treatment is effective, most supporters and critics alike acknowledge.

“We’re certainly supportive of it and defend it and its existence as a policy in Colorado,” said Jessica Dotter, a legislative policy chief for the Colorado District Attorneys Council who focuses on special victims prosecution.

She said the backlog has improved and that most of the delays are among offenders serving short sentences because they’re immediately eligible for treatment; offenders enter the waitlist when they get within four years of their first parole date. Successful treatment lowers recidivism, research has shown, and Dotter said district attorneys have supported hiring more staff.

At the core of the problem is a shortage of those sex offender treatment professionals, Corrections Department data shows. More than 43% of jobs in the state’s treatment program — 26 out of 60 — were vacant as of early December. That significant shortage was still an , when more than half of the jobs were unfilled.

The department has also resisted efforts to provide treatment virtually, citing staffing and privacy concerns. Some inmates have sought to hire their own therapists, but the department has rejected those requests.

“The CDOC is committed to providing constitutionally adequate care and evidence-based treatment to the entire population,” Gonzalez-Garcia wrote. “We are actively working to mitigate our clinical staffing shortages so we can provide this treatment to all individuals as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

Is state ‘unwilling to change’?

Research has shown that treatment — which includes months of therapy — is effective, and so has Michael Dougherty’s experience, the Boulder district attorney said. Colorado’s system “would and should be working,” he said, were it not for the treatment backlog.

“We just can’t accept that,” he said. “People won’t have a whole lot of sympathy for sex offenders, but everybody wants to see fairness in our justice system.”

The problems in this corner of Colorado’s justice system are not new. A 2016 audit found that Colorado’s sex offender treatment system spent as much as $44 million a year on more than 1,200 inmates who’d passed their parole dates but were still waiting on treatment. that, in 2013, inmates who did enter treatment were then fearful of being kicked out and restarting the process, causing some offenders to ” ‘appease the treatment provider’ instead of genuinely engaging in treatment.”

In 2024, said corrections officials were resistant to telehealth options because of privacy and staffing concerns. The parole board has long interpreted an ambiguous term in state law — that an inmate should “successfully progress” in treatment before release — to mean that in-prison treatment must be completely concluded.

Colorado’s approach to sex offender treatment is “notorious,” said Michael Miner, a Minnesota expert who has researched and provided treatment for sexual offenders. He has also worked in senior leadership positions with national treatment provider organizations. Treatment involves using psychotherapy to discern why offenders committed their crimes, while making “major” life changes to ensure it doesn’t happen again, he said.

It’s generally effective, Miner said, and has been shown to reduce recidivism.

But he questioned whether Colorado was providing the proper levels of treatment to lower-risk offenders. The 2016 audit report also criticized the department’s referrals, and the pending class-action lawsuit alleges that state officials have referred every inmate with a history of a sexual offense — amounting to 25% of the prison population — to sex offender treatment.

“The prison-based program has been a problem for a very long time,” Miner said. “It just doesn’t have the capacity that¶¶Ňőap necessary, given the laws that Colorado has passed about what you need to do to get out of prison. They’re unable, in some respects, to fix it because the capacity issue is related to the ability to staff, and the state seems unwilling to change the way they choose who needs to be treated and who doesn’t.”

Efforts to increase staffing have shown some success, as the department has offered hiring incentives and undertaken more national recruiting efforts.

But the backlog continues: As of June, 744 people were on the prison department’s “global referral list” awaiting treatment, according to data obtained in a public records request. Of those, 275 were serving indeterminate sentences, for which completing treatment was the only way to be paroled. One hundred sixty-nine of those inmates were past their parole eligibility dates, by an average of nearly a year and a half.

In other words, they’d served 18 months more than they otherwise would have, had they been given access to treatment sooner.

Dotter, from the Colorado District Attorneys Council, said those statistics have improved over the past decade and that officials have worked to improve staffing to reduce the backlog. But she said providers are difficult to hire. There are shortages of mental health practitioners across the country, and that shortage becomes more acute for therapists willing to treat sex offenders in rural prisons.

Recent hiring efforts have not solved the problem, to the frustration of budget-minded legislators.

“What do we do? It’s either something where we haven’t thrown enough money at it — or no matter how much money we throw at it, there’s no solution here,” Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat on the Joint Budget Committee, said earlier this month about overall staff vacancies within prisons, including within sexual offender treatment.

Budget analyst Justin Brakke replied that the Corrections Department had provided no “roadmap” to fix sex offender treatment in the past.

“People have to want to fix it in order to give you a roadmap,” he said.

Agency spokeswoman Gonzalez-Garcia said the Corrections Department does not “create laws.”

“Our department is committed to working with the legislature, the (Sex Offender Management Board), and our public safety partners to provide data and operational expertise on any proposed reforms,” she wrote.

Calls for reform, judicial intervention

Attorneys and advocates critical of the system have argued that the state needs to look at the underlying sentencing laws, not building out the stable of providers that implements them.

Stan Garnett, a defense attorney and former Boulder district attorney, said the legislature should “roll up its sleeves” and find a solution. When someone is sentenced to an indeterminate term, he said, no one — not the offender, not their victim, not the prison system — knows exactly when they’ll get released.

“The fact that we have hundreds of these people that are just freaking lingering in prisons is just horrific in a civilized society,” Garnett said.

Lawmakers have been hesitant to take on the issue.

that would have eliminated indeterminate sentences and replaced them with firm, determinate prison terms was killed in its first committee. (Miner testified in favor of it.) Quieter discussions about launching a fiscal study of the system were also shelved earlier this year.

The issue is politically toxic: Few lawmakers want to weigh in on sex offender treatment or reforming those offenders’ sentencing terms. Dougherty called it a political “third rail.”

“Nobody wants to touch it,” said Sen. Judy Amabile, a Boulder Democrat who tried to build support for the study bill earlier this year.

In the absence of legislative action, three factors now threaten to exacerbate the backlog.

First, that would require that indeterminate sentences be given to people who sexually abuse children. Legislators have defeated efforts to enact similar penalties in recent years, in part over concerns about the treatment backlog.

Second, the state’s prisons are nearly full. that the male prison population was expected to exceed the state’s capacity in the next fiscal year.

Colorado men’s prisons will run out space in next fiscal year, state warns

The final factor is the class-action lawsuit, brought by more than a dozen inmates, to challenge the sentencing system. It has progressed for nearly 18 months, despite the state's attempt to dismiss it. While other smaller lawsuits have failed or been dismissed because the inmate involved was moved into treatment, the class-action case presents a more concrete challenge to the sentencing system.

George Brauchler, the district attorney for the Castle Rock-based 23rd Judicial District and a supporter of the system, said he was not excited by the idea of judicial intervention.

"I'm a big fan of judges never, ever — never — making law or policy," he said.

A prominent conservative critic of Colorado's Democratic leaders, Brauchler said he was equally disinclined to trust the legislature to fix the problem; he alleged that lawmakers would just be more lenient. He and Danielle Jaramillo, his deputy district attorney who prosecutes sex offenses, both called for longer sentences and questioned whether treatment was effective at all.

In the absence of sentences that are "10 times" as long as current guidelines, Jaramillo said, the option of an indeterminate sentence is still preferable.

"An indeterminate sentence at least puts someone in front of a parole board," she said.

Kepros, the public defender, said calls for reform wouldn't necessarily mean lighter sentences. But reform would bring clarity and fairness, she and others argued.

"I understand people who don't care that someone who’s committed a sex offense is in prison longer, just because of the nature of the crime," she said. "But I don't think that¶¶Ňőap a position that is constitutional or is fair.

"It flies in the face of how our entire court system is supposed to work, where a judge imposes a sentence, and you're not supposed to serve a much longer sentence (just) because nobody bothers to give you the tools to serve the sentence you were given."

The three county commissioners on Tuesday that would hit businesses in unincorporated parts of the county with $50 fines for each 24-hour period following an unreported theft, with a maximum fine of $1,000 per incident.

The measure still needs a second vote to become law.

“We’re not going to allow a culture where people walk out of a store with a stack of drills and nobody says a word — that era is over in Douglas County,” said Commissioner Abe Laydon during a livestreamed news conference from county headquarters in Castle Rock on Tuesday. “We also want to protect honest customers. So we’re putting an end to the era of silent losses that get passed on to the community.”

District Attorney George Brauchler, whose office prosecutes criminals in Douglas County, cited state laws that have raised dollar thresholds and lowered penalties for retail theft as a big contributor to the problem. Many of those changes to misdemeanor and petty offenses handled in state courts were part of sweeping reforms in 2021 that of the misdemeanor code, but critics argued it went too far.

The practice of releasing thieves on personal recognizance bonds will be severely curtailed in the county, Brauchler said.

“That culture is a failed culture — it hasn’t worked,” Brauchler said at the event. “We wanted to take a different approach, and so the approach that I pitched … was we’re going to try to arrest everybody. You steal from us, expect to go to jail.”

But Chris Howes, the president of the Colorado Retail Council, is wary of placing part of the burden on retailers when it comes to merchandise disappearing from their shelves. Douglas County says there are about 900 retail outlets in unincorporated parts of the county.

“Retail store staff are busy enough with customer service during the holiday shopping season without having to adhere to additional strict mandates — so we look forward to more conversations with county officials,” he said. “Penalizing the store for the actions of thieves may not be the most effective approach.”

Jon Caldara, the president of the libertarian-leaning Independence Institute, agreed with Douglas County leaders that state lawmakers in recent years paved the way for increased criminal activity in Colorado by passing what he called “soft-on-crime” laws.

But for him, the idea of punishing retail outlets in the wake of a theft is a bridge too far.

“It is such the wrong approach, I believe,” Caldara said. “To be victimized by a crime and then victimized by the system is wrong.”

Theft has been a bane to Colorado retailers over the last few years, with grocery and convenience stores among those locking up certain highly sought items to keep them from disappearing. Brazen robberies have made headlines, as happened when four thieves dressed up as construction workers and used drills, power saws and blowtorches to ransack a Cherry Creek jeweler last year.

The men made off with more than $12 million in luxury watches and accessories.

In a , the Common Sense Institute, a business-oriented think tank, found that Colorado recorded 27,094 shoplifting incidents in 2024, a 22.4% increase over the prior year. That number was nearly 10% higher than a decade ago, the organization reported.

The institute also found that nearly 90% of retail thefts in Colorado go unreported.

That’s a percentage Commissioner George Teal wants to sharply reduce.

“We also know that many local storefronts are taking their cues from corporate headquarters, in places like New York and San Francisco, where liberal policies allow for lawlessness,” he said. “If we don’t know about it, we can’t address it.”

Douglas County’s ordinance would require businesses to report a theft within 96 hours of it happening, though it’s not clear how law enforcement would discover a violation of that rule. It also would require retailers to retain photographic or video evidence of a crime and forbid management from retaliating against an employee who reports a theft.

“We don’t tolerate shoplifting in Douglas County,” Laydon said. “We protect our retailers, and we protect our citizens and the citizens that are shopping.”

Layton’s father, Jacob Birkbeck, arrived at Gilmour’s Littleton apartment in November 2022 for a custody exchange when he noticed something wasn’t right. Gilmour allegedly laughed and claimed the toddler was sleeping. When Birkbeck arrived at his mother’s home shortly after, he noticed Layton was not breathing and called 911.

The child died, and when investigators searched the apartment Gilmour shared with her boyfriend, they found cocaine, mushrooms, marijuana and fentanyl, which prosecutors allege Layton accidentally ingested.

“This was a senseless and preventable tragedy,” said Chief Deputy District Attorney Jake Adkins, who prosecuted the case. “Every parent has a responsibility to protect their child. Instead, their mother created an environment so dangerous that it cost her son his life.”

Gilmour faces 16 to 48 years in prison. Her sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 12.

Re: “I love public radio, but it shouldn’t get a federal subsidy,” July 27 commentary

Like most conservatives, columnist Krista Kafer presents a deceptive argument on the subject of public broadcasting. The abandonment of PBS and NPR funding has little to do with unbalanced reporting. It has more to do with the quality of information — and information has always been kryptonite to the interests of the right wing. The far right sees an informed public as a liability. The last thing they need is a Nova edition documenting man’s contribution to global warming, a concept that their leader  describes as a hoax.

I strain to discern a bias when I listen to say, the Friday News Roundup on NPR’s 1A. I simply come away with a deeper understanding of the week’s stories. The conservative “The Devil’s Advocate” on PBS has been a staple for many years. And most of the programming on the public airwaves is not political, but cultural or educational: Nova, the Ken Burns documentaries, classical music, etc.

Public broadcasting will never be the darling of conservatives. But our democracy can only be enhanced by an information source that operates with a free hand, unencumbered by the bottom line of profitability.

Wrong, Krista, to confuse an investment with a subsidy.

Scott Newell, Denver

Corporation for Public Broadcasting to shut down after being defunded by Congress, targeted by Trump

Thank you, Krista Kafer, for your thoughtful and well-expressed article regarding the reasons we should not be supporting biased news outlets with federal tax dollars -- my tax dollars. Great common-sense article!

Barbara Peck, Aurora

Krista Kafer, like many well-meaning but ivory tower conservatives, supports using funding as a weapon. What percentage of PBS programming in small communities is focused on liberally biased news and how many locally sourced news and services will be cut off because conservatives are offended by news programming? Is the only way to influence the programming on PBS to punish Big Bird, emergency broadcasting, and small local stations? How many conservatives have promoted programming on PBS? Where are the William F. Buckley types, educated, informative and involved instead of wielding chainsaws?

Ms Kafer, I think you need to be haranguing your fellow conservatives to come up with programming that can compete with that provided by “liberals,” and get it on PBS. Whining because the other guys do better at keeping the audience’s interest is lame.  One of the best features of the PBS Newshour is when they have guests of opposing viewpoints debating. We need more of that, not less.

A. Lynn Buschhoff, Denver

Krista Kafer obviously doesn’t “get the point” about public radio and public TV!  It¶¶Ňőap certainly not all about “anti/pro” political views.  It¶¶Ňőap a place where a listener/viewer can enjoy music, stories, and ideas objectively, as well as important weather and public safety information (all without annoying advertising).

My husband and I are a “two-party” couple, and on public radio and public TV, neither of us has been offended by “one-sided” political news coverage (about whoever happens to be the president in any given year or decade).  I enjoy classical music on the radio.  On RMPBS, my husband and I watch interesting and informative historical, scientific, and worldwide programs daily and nightly, without being bombarded by brainless game shows and canned-laughter “comedies.”   Toddlers and children of all ages enjoy and learn from the children’s programs on RMPBS. None of our listening/watching has to do with politics.

You seem to be upset by descriptive words such as “unhoused”, “living wage” and “undocumented.” On the other hand, I am upset that a convicted felon was elected president, and I am required to pay taxes to support his extravagance and vanity.

Ms. Kafer, I hope sometime you have a moment to watch or listen to something interesting, educational, uplifting and non-political on the public channels (that someone else is kindly financing for you).

N.R.Kembel, Arvada

I think that PBS is "left-leaning" is a false narrative. Individuals who make this claim never provide an overview of broadcasts to support this. They have simply repeated this over and over until we have accepted it.

The subject matter and people interviewed at PBS cover a wide range of positions and generally represent a politically centered approach. The problem is that the Republican position has shifted so far to the right that their view of anything mainstream seems "left" to them. We shouldn't accept their perspective that PBS is "left-leaning" any more than their other misshapen narratives.

Fred Buschhoff, Denver

Denver Post, consider some conservative leaders

Re: "Crow had good reason to inspect detention facility," July 27 editorial

It is this leftist print media, (the Post) and voice-media, CPR (Colorado Public Radio), that has inspired and motivated people to find somewhere else to live rather than Colorado. You've succeeded in making this state unaffordable and intolerable (cost-of-living, criminal activity, weakened gun laws) with your constant propping up of such fake "military heroes" as Rep. Jason Crow. The latest example of your ability to misinform readers is the editorial last Sunday.

You called out and dismissed John Fabbricatore's comment of "performative" in describing Crow's action of showing up at the ICE Detention Center when it was operating with a skeleton crew only, on a weekend. What was Crow thinking? Typical of a second-rate politician.

The sooner the media backs off from its left-of-center stances and chooses to present a balanced report of what is happening in Colorado, the better. Then and only then will voters receive the truth.

This liberal mainstream media would do Colorado a favor by considering, for high office, such alternative leaders as Fabbricatore, Danielle Jurinsky, George Brauchler, Heidi Ganahl, and other more conservative-thinking individuals who consider common sense more important than victimhood.

Please wake up, Denver Post! Consider some right-of-center reporting and commentary besides your token, pretend-conservative Krista Kafer.

Bernadette Sonefeld, Aurora

Xcel 'not ready for prime time'

Xcel recently that, starting in October, the mid-peak Time-of-Use rate will be eliminated and the highest rate, on-peak hours, will shift from 3 p.m. - 7 p.m. to 5 p.m. - 9 p.m. weekdays. This is a more tacit admission that two of the energy sources Xcel has chosen to prioritize for electric power generation are not ready for prime time, baseload grid support, and will lead to power delivery shortfalls.  During this critical daily usage period, Xcel will not be able to deliver as promised to meet reasonable customer demand.  Rather than shore up baseload power delivery capacity, Xcel instead continues resorting to price-based, energy usage behavior modification.

Given all the environmental quality improvements of the past 50+ years and the ongoing technological improvements in emissions reductions from traditional power generation platforms, this corporate admonishment to reduce electric power usage to less than reasonable standards is case closed proof Xcel is out of touch with a customer base that understands the benefits of energy conservation yet should not be expected to make up for power delivery shortfalls due to Xcel’s questionable decisions regarding energy sources for power generation.

Xcel’s announcement happened in concert with the , which cast an alarming pall on the state of domestic electric grid stability and reliability. This is primarily due to an unbalanced shift to new generation sources requiring 24/7 backup from traditional generation sources, which were too soon taken out of service based on specious assumptions about a trace atmospheric gas.

Douglass Croot, Highlands Ranch

Senseless deaths of shelter dogs

Re: "," July 30 news story

It¶¶Ňőap interesting that there was a significant amount of protesting in Germany when a zoo killed 12 healthy baboons.

Americans killed 1,600 shelter dogs a day last year. That is more than half a million bodies of dead dogs, that were healthy, every year in our country.

Only reason? We have no place for so many dogs to live. Shame on us.

Shame on us.

Bill Naylor, Denver

Modern technology in medicine can help rural patients

Re: "Colorado's rural hospitals are failing - and so are our policy priorities," July 12 commentary

Your recent article captured what so many in our state already know: Rural health care is on the brink. As a physician in Colorado Springs, I regularly see how limited access to care forces patients to delay treatment or travel long distances to get the services they need.

Protecting and maintaining the nonprofit tax-exempt status of rural hospitals is one solution. Another is modernizing our medicine. I’m thinking specifically of genetically targeted technologies (GTTs), advanced treatments that address disease at the genetic level instead of just managing symptoms.

For patients, GTTs offer something simple but powerful: fewer visits, fewer pills and better quality of life. Some require only one or two injections a year, replacing daily medications and helping patients stick with treatment even when providers are far away. For rural Coloradans, that can mean fewer miles traveled, better outcomes and more time with family.

GTTs already are reshaping how we treat conditions like high cholesterol and heart disease, two major drivers of health complications and early death in rural areas.

As we work to strengthen rural health care in Colorado, let¶¶Ňőap make room for the kinds of breakthroughs that can meet patients where they are.

Kari Uusinarkaus, Colorado Springs

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J.E., who is being identified by her initials to protect her daughter’s identity, wanted to be convicted, locked away. She wanted to know he couldn’t hurt anyone else, at least for a while.

But that’s not what happened.

Jesus Alberto Pereira Castillo, 21, posted $5,000 bail and was released from the Jefferson County jail on Nov. 27, 2024, court records show. He was subsequently arrested by federal immigration authorities and was deported from the country by May.

“Clerk notified via email that deft” — the defendant — “has been removed from the country,” Chief Judge Jeffrey Pilkington wrote in a May 19 order.

The deportation effectively ended the state’s criminal case against Castillo — the prosecution cannot continue , though he remains wanted on a warrant and could be prosecuted if he were to return to Colorado.

There was no conviction, no sentence, no jail time — just a deportation.

“It¶¶Ňőap been pretty hard on me and my daughter,” J.E. said. “She doesn’t feel like she is getting the justice she deserves. It just has been so easy for immigrants to come into the country after they are deported. So the fear is that he might relocate somewhere else in the U.S. and do this to someone else. Them deporting him ruined justice for my daughter.”

At least two dozen defendants and one witness in criminal cases in metro Denver have been taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and deported in the middle of ongoing state prosecutions since September, The Denver Post found. District attorneys across the region started to notice more defendants disappearing into ICE custody this spring, as President Donald Trump ramped up deportations nationwide.

Colorado district attorneys who spoke with The Post said such deportations are not in the interest of justice and do not improve public safety over the long term.

“If I can’t hold someone accountable because the defendant is deported before we’ve reached a just outcome in the case, and the defendant finds their way back here and commits another crime, that does not make the community safer,” 17th Judicial District Attorney Brian Mason said. “If victims of crime are afraid to call the police after they have been sexually assaulted or some other terrible crime because they are worried about being deported, that makes our community less safe.”

The defendants deported were charged with crimes that included driving under the influence, car theft, drug distribution, assault, domestic violence, attempted murder and human trafficking.

Again and again, court records reviewed by The Post showed criminal cases stalled by deportations.

“Def does not appear as he was deported and is no longer in the U.S.,” a document notes in the file for a  26-year-old man from Brazil who was accused of swinging a knife at his wife.

“Deft no longer in the country. Defendant (failed to appear),” a record states in the file for a 32-year-old man from Mexico charged with driving a stolen car.

‘Full force of the law’

Detectives with the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office and the Denver Police Department spent six months building a case against a 28-year-old man from El Salvador who they alleged sold drugs and was connected to a woman who fatally overdosed at an Arapahoe County apartment complex in October.

The investigation included a drug deal with an undercover Denver detective and ongoing surveillance. The man was charged with four felony counts related to drug dealing and two counts of child abuse after the six-month investigation culminated in his arrest on April 9.

The man’s arrest affidavit notes that he was arrested by the Aurora Police Department’s SWAT team, and then, without further explanation, says he was taken into custody by ICE.

Aurora police spokesman Joe Moylan said the city’s SWAT team assisted in the arrest and then turned the man over to the sheriff’s office while at the scene. Anders Nelson, a spokesman for the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office, said the agency “partners with ICE” when pursuing cases against suspected non-citizen drug dealers.

“ICE uses various means to positively identify these individuals, and so when they are arrested, ICE agents respond to identify the individual so that we can charge them accordingly under their correct name,” Nelson said. “In this case, the subject had a lengthy criminal history that included active warrants for his arrest and had entered the U.S. illegally on several occasions, and so ICE agents took custody of him.”

The suspect accused of selling drugs was deported within a month. The state criminal case remains open.

“Deft has been deported,” the man’s court records noted on May 9.

In an emailed statement, Denver ICE spokesman Steve Kotecki said the federal agency “arrests aliens who threaten public safety and commit crimes.”

Before their recent arrests and deportations, the two men from El Salvador and Brazil had previously been cited only for traffic violations in Colorado, according to records kept by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. The man from Mexico had prior convictions for car theft and drug possession.

“ICE recognizes the importance of addressing unlawful actions with the full force of the law, ensuring that individuals are held accountable for their actions,” Kotecki said in the statement. “We are committed to creating safe and thriving communities by supporting effective and fair law enforcement practices.”

Tristan Gorman, a criminal defense attorney, noted that ICE’s mid-case deportations, which come before a defendant is convicted of a crime, are “completely disregarding the constitutional presumption of innocence.”

Mason, who serves as DA for Adams and Broomfield counties, said federal agencies “are under enormous pressure to implement the policies of the current administration.”

“This is new,” he said of the growing number of mid-case deportations.

Long-used process is no longer reliable

In the past, when ICE detained defendants while their state cases were ongoing, prosecutors relied on court orders called writs to ensure the defendants still appeared in court. A writ in this context is a judge’s order to a custodial agency, like a jail or immigration detention center, requiring the agency to bring the defendant to court.

ICE is no longer reliably complying with writs to produce defendants for their state hearings, First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King said.

“It¶¶Ňőap hard to know and it¶¶Ňőap hard to predict how a writ will be honored or not,” she said. “…A writ was our standard process that we relied on to keep someone available for a criminal proceeding. It is not consistently working.”

ICE hasn’t communicated its policies or procedures in any cohesive way to her team of Jefferson and Gilpin county prosecutors, King said. Her office is relying on personal connections between staff and officials at ICE to try to ensure defendants in federal custody are brought to court.

“It’s felt pretty ad hoc, and often reliant on us being very proactive,” she said.

ICE officials informed the Adams County Sheriff’s Office and the Denver Sheriff Department in June that the agency would no longer comply with writs for detainees in immigration custody to physically appear in the counties’ criminal courts.

“ICE Denver is no longer honor (sic) writ from Denver County Court due to the Denver County Jail do not (sic) comply with immigration detainer or fail to transfer custody of aliens in a safe and orderly manner,” Hung Thach, a supervisory detention and deportation officer in the Denver field office, wrote in a June 16 email to Denver officials.

In a statement issued to 9News and Colorado Public Radio, Denver Field Office Director Robert Gaudian said ICE would not honor the writs because agency officials were not confident the detainees would be returned to ICE’s custody after their state court appearances.

Kotecki did not respond to a request to share that statement with The Post. He previously has requested blanket anonymity for his statements as a spokesman for the federal agency, which The Post declined to grant. He also has said he would no longer provide information to The Post unless the newspaper complied with his request for anonymity.

“In the past, ICE Denver and the Adams County sheriff have enjoyed a great working relationship, with ICE honoring writs for trials and the sheriff notifying us of an alien’s release,” Gaudian said in the statement, . “This relationship must be reciprocal, though. If I’m not confident that the sheriff will return an alien to us, then I cannot in good conscience release that individual.”

Denver sheriff’s spokeswoman Daria Serna defended the department’s practices for handling writs in a statement Wednesday.

“The Denver Sheriff Department¶¶Ňőap policy and practice for the transfer of people in custody are in alignment with state and local laws,” she said.

ICE approach varies by jurisdiction

So far in Boulder, immigration authorities have largely complied with writs to produce defendants for state court hearings with just a handful of exceptions, said Michael Dougherty, the Boulder County district attorney.

The bigger risk for his office is not knowing about ICE detainment in time to seek a writ and delay deportation, because federal agents are failing to consistently alert prosecutors when they arrest defendants in state criminal cases, he said.

“ICE should provide a notification anytime they pick someone up and the person is a defendant,” Dougherty said. “That has not always happened. What has happened, more often than not, is we find out from the defense attorney or someone connected to the defendant that someone has been arrested by ICE and held for possible deportation.”

Dougherty noted that deportations seem to be happening much faster than in past years. When a defendant is deported in the middle of a case, it has a broad impact, he said.

“The victim never had his or her day in court,” he said. “We couldn’t do justice. There is no conviction, no sex offender registration and no consequences. And the person is deported to a country. We have no reason to believe the person is held responsible for the crime they were accused of.”

In Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties, prosecutors have not had any issues with ICE agents deporting defendants mid-case, said 23rd Judicial District Attorney George Brauchler. He said federal agents have given his office warnings when ICE is interested in defendants, which has allowed prosecutors to revoke defendants’ bonds to keep them in jail — in state custody — while the criminal case is pending.

Gorman, the defense attorney, said revoking bond simply because a person could be deported is fundamentally unfair.

“We’re just basically saying to them, ‘Yeah, we put all these terms and conditions on your bond and you’ve got to comply with them or we will revoke your bond,” she said. “But even if you do absolutely everything right and show up at all your court dates, we might revoke your bond anyway… even though you followed all the rules.”

Arrests at courthouses

Colorado law prohibits ICE agents from arresting people at or near state courthouses for civil immigration purposes — a line that federal agents have crossed multiple times this year, including in Denver and on the Western Slope.

Federal agents have also been routinely making immigration arrests at Denver’s federal courthouses, which are not covered by the state prohibition.

In Garfield, Pitkin and Rio Blanco counties, federal agents monitored courthouse dockets in order to detain defendants for immigration proceedings, Ninth Judicial District Chief Judge John Neiley wrote in instructing federal agents to stop.

“In short, these types of arrests make courthouses less safe, frustrate the process of justice, and could have a chilling effect on litigants, witnesses, victims, court personnel and other members of the public who have a right and obligation to participate fairly in the judicial system,” Neiley wrote in the order.

Although the practice is against Colorado law, there are no criminal penalties for federal agents who make such prohibited arrests. Rather, they can be held in contempt of court or sued by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. Spokesman Lawrence Pacheco said the office could not confirm or comment on any such investigations.

“Attorney General (Phil) Weiser is concerned about reports of ICE arrests at state courthouses interfering with state criminal prosecutions and having a chilling effect on witnesses and victims in criminal cases,” Pacheco said. “Federal immigration arrests at courthouses make our communities less safe and violate state law.”

Eugene Howard Glimpse, 55, was sentenced Tuesday to 32 years to life in prison after he was convicted by a Douglas County jury in January of sexually assaulting three children between ages 5 and 8, according to court records.

The jury found Glimpse guilty of three counts of sexual assault on a child, enticement of a child and sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust — all felonies, court records show.

“Candidly, it is not enough,” 23rd Judicial District Attorney George Brauchler stated in a Thursday news release. “He sentenced those innocent kids to a lifetime of trauma. This does not feel like justice, but it is all our laws allow.”

Glimpse assaulted the children between 2002 and 2012 while he lived in Castle Rock. He later moved to Texas and was returned to Colorado in 2023 after a warrant was issued for his arrest.