When Denver Police Use Confidential Informants: How the Defense Challenges Reliability
September 12, 2026
If you are convicted of a sex crime and must register as a sex offender in Colorado, your life will change drastically. Your name and other personal information will be on the state’s Sex Offender Registry Board and you will have to submit to certain restrictions that could have long-lasting consequences on your everyday life.
What does this look like specifically, though?
In this blog post, we will cover what it is like to live as a registered sex offender[...]
The requirement to register as a sex offender is one of the penalties for being found guilty of certain crimes. You may not think it’s a big deal, but registration as a sex offender is taken very seriously by the state – so seriously that failing to do so can land you in serious trouble.
Here’s what you need to know about sex offender registration in Colorado and what can happen if you fail to register as required by the [...]
When someone commits a crime and is found guilty, they may expect certain consequences to stem from that, such as jail time or fines. However, some penalties associated with crimes can stick around for years after all jail time has been served, especially when it comes to convictions for sex crimes.
Those convicted of certain sex crimes in Colorado must register as sex offenders. Most of those offenders are required to register their updated information at least once per year, [...]
The world is an increasingly crowded and connected place. That may be why the right to privacy is seen as something so precious, especially over the last several decades.
In Colorado, you can be criminally charged with invasion of privacy, which is a concept that someone’s private life has been intruded on by another without their consent.
It’s not a standalone crime but one that has several distinct causes of action that can land you with a felony charge in [...]
The justice system is founded on the premise of rehabilitating offenders. Individuals are sentenced to punishments deemed to fit the crime.
Once a sentence is carried out, offenders are said to have paid their dues. Yet there are some crimes that continue to cause harm to ex-offenders long after their sentence is over. Sex crimes are one of them.
Unique because offenders may be sentenced to register on the sex offender registry, the handling has come under some controversy. The [...]
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 [...]
Colorado COCCA charges are racketeering charges used when prosecutors claim a person participated in an enterprise through a pattern of criminal activity. These cases often grow out of drug, theft, burglary, fraud, identity theft, or financial investigations that are later reframed as organized conduct.
A COCCA count is not automatic just because several people were charged together or because prosecutors believe more than one crime occurred. The state must prove specific structural elements, including an enterprise and a pattern of [...]