How Colorado Extradition Works for Out-of-State Criminal Charges
September 22, 2026
When holidays come around, Colorado law enforcement officials tend to be out in full force looking for impaired drivers.
This year, the Colorado Department of Transportation’s Halloween Heat Is On campaign lasted for a whole week, starting on Friday, October 27, and ending on Thursday, November 2. The campaign hoped to “eliminate impaired driving related injuries and fatalities over Halloween weekend” by setting up DWI – driving while intoxicated – checkpoints as well as increasing and saturating patrols.
Chief of [...]
Drinking and driving are illegal throughout the United States. If you’re caught committing this crime, you could face serious consequences like jail time, community service, expensive fines and fees, suspension of your driver’s license, and numerous other penalties that could affect all aspects of your life.
That’s why it’s important to understand our state’s laws when it comes to drinking and driving.
Some states, like Texas, have DWI offenses – driving while intoxicated. Here in Colorado, however, we have two [...]
Have you ever wondered what your blood alcohol content (BAC) is before getting behind the wheel?
There are numerous breathalyzers on the market that are available to consumers for their own personal use. Right now, however, you may not even need to buy one. Why? Because the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) is giving away breathalyzers to eligible candidates in an effort to study whether having access to a mobile Breathalyzer decreases a person’s risk of driving drunk.
Drinking and [...]
Memorial Day is about remembering those who lost their lives while serving our country, but it’s also a time where we start celebrating the end of the school year and the beginning of summer. We get together with family and friends to relax, grill, and enjoy a couple of drinks over the long three-day weekend before we have to head back to work on Tuesday.
When we celebrate Memorial Day with a few drinks, though, it’s important to remember not [...]
If you are put on probation, you still have to display excellent behavior and stay out of trouble. Actions that are perfectly legal for anyone else may put you back in the courtroom – or possibly even jail.
Depending on the terms of your probation, one of those actions may be the seemingly innocuous decision to have a few drinks. Ty Lawson is learning this the hard way.
Back in 2015, when Lawson was still playing with the Denver Nuggets, [...]
Extradition is about where a criminal case will be handled—not whether the person is guilty. If someone is arrested in Colorado on another state’s warrant, the immediate questions are usually whether to waive extradition, whether bail is available, how long the process may take, and what can actually be challenged before the person is returned.
The same issue can run in the other direction. A person may be arrested in another state because Colorado issued the warrant. In that situation, [...]
A confidential informant almost never speaks to the judge who signs the warrant. Instead, the judge reads a detective’s sworn summary of what an unnamed person allegedly said. That gap can become one of the most important issues in a Denver drug, weapons, theft, or other criminal case.
The defense does not cross-examine the informant when the warrant is issued. At that stage, the focus is on the affidavit itself: what the informant allegedly knew, how police verified the information, [...]
Colorado fentanyl possession charges can become serious felonies at relatively low weight thresholds. The law focuses on the weight of the material, compound, mixture, or preparation containing fentanyl rather than only the amount of pure fentanyl inside it. That means a small-looking quantity of powder or counterfeit pills can result in a much more serious charge once the substance is tested and weighed.
Weight is only part of the case. What the accused person knew, whether the state can prove [...]