What Happens at a Denver Preliminary Hearing After Felony Arrest
June 19, 2026
One of the most severe consequences of a run-in with the law follows you long after your sentence is complete: living with a criminal record.
A criminal record is not only embarrassing, but also compromises many aspects of your life, including employment, higher education and even housing applications. In many ways, a criminal record encourages former offenders to turn to crime just to make a living.
Fortunately, it may be possible to have your criminal record sealed or expunged. While, [...]
Last month, the city of Denver hosted its first free legal clinic designed to help Coloradans with old drug convictions to have their records expunged according to new legislation.
In 2017 (three years after Amendment 64 was passed, and one year after it went into effect), additional legislation was passed in an effort to offer some reparative justice to those previously convicted of low-level drug crimes that would be considered legal under current law.
If you currently have an old [...]
If you are seeking employment, a new apartment or home, or if you need to get a loan, there’s a very high likelihood that the people in charge of deciding whether or not you’ll get what you want are going to do a background check on you.
Why should you care?
Because background checks contain all kinds of important information about you. Personal information. Employment information. Financial information.
They also bring up your criminal record.
No big deal, though, right? [...]
Do you want your criminal record to follow you around for the rest of your life? Be accessed by the public? Ruin your chances of a normal professional and personal life?
If your answer to these questions is no, then you should contact an experienced Colorado criminal defense attorney to find out if your criminal record is eligible to be sealed or expunged. Not every record qualifies, but it’s worth pursuing so you might finally be able to put [...]
Everyone makes mistakes. Especially when we’re young, figuring out who we are and learning about the world. What no one wants is the mistakes of their wayward youth to follow them around when they become adults.
That’s why a bill that Governor John Hickenlooper signed in May is so important.
Co-sponsored by state Representative Pete Lee, D-Colorado Springs, and state Senator John Cooke, R-Weld County, the bill makes it easier for juveniles to have their criminal records expunged for certain [...]
A preliminary hearing in a felony case in Colorado is one of the earliest opportunities for the prosecution’s evidence to be tested before a judge. It happens after charges have been filed and the defendant has made an initial appearance, but before the case moves into trial court. The hearing is not about deciding guilt or innocence. Instead, the court is checking whether the prosecution has sufficient evidence to move the case forward.
In Colorado, this stage is often [...]
Only one drug felony level in Colorado carries a true mandatory prison sentence. The other three carry presumptive ranges where a judge still has discretion, meaning the defense strategy in a DF2, DF3, or DF4 case looks completely different from that in a DF1 case. At the Law Office of Jacob Martinez, our Denver drug crimes attorney has spent more than a decade in Denver courts, working to achieve better outcomes for clients facing felony drug charges.
Only One Drug[...]Yes. Dash cam footage from police vehicles and your own camera can be used to challenge DUI charges in Colorado. The question is not whether it is relevant but whether you know how to obtain it, how Colorado courts evaluate it, and what a defense attorney actually does with it. The Law Office of Jacob E. Martinez has defended DUI cases throughout Denver and surrounding Colorado courts for more than 15 years.
What Colorado Police Dash Cams Actually Record at[...]