How Eyewitness Misidentification Can Lead to Wrongful Convictions in Denver
April 23, 2026
Colorado law recognizes your right to protect your person, your property, and other people when unlawfully threatened. Unfortunately, while self-defense is a lawful and perfectly understandable instinct, proving that you were acting out of self-defense in court is an incredibly difficult task.
In Colorado, the laws determining whether you acted in self-defense are not hard and fast ones, since many judges have differing views on what it means to protect yourself. If you use physical force to defend yourself, you [...]
While our nation’s youth crime rates have declined considerably in the last 20 years, the US continues to put more children and teenagers in juvenile detention centers than any other developed country. Our juvenile incarceration rate is seven times higher than Britain’s, and 18 times higher than France’s rate. Each year, we spend millions of taxpayer dollars keeping children and teens behind bars.
While these numbers are frightening on their own, it’s even more frightening to consider the effects of [...]
For some, it’s considered the season of giving. For others, it’s the season of shopping. But for as many as one in 11 Americans, it’s also the season of shoplifting.
The world has a serious shoplifting problem as it is—last year alone, it was estimated that retailers lost $112 billion worth of inventory. In America, the shoplifting problem only worsens during the holidays, when research shows that national shoplifting arrests increase nearly nine percent. The struggling economy has had an [...]
In adult society today, alcohol is almost everywhere we look—beer has become a central point of social gatherings, a rum and coke helps us break the ice in bars, a glass of wine helps us unwind after a long day at the office. While the prevalence of alcohol in today’s society is something that many of us have become accustomed to, the fact that it has become such an accepted part of how we socialize is something we need [...]
The holidays are upon us already, and even though your stomach may still be recovering from the Thanksgiving feast, Christmas and New Years are just around the corner – not to mention another month (or, hopefully, two!) of tailgating at Broncos games.
But you should be worried about a lot more than putting on a few extra pounds this holiday season. According to this eye-opening infographic, there’s a 33% jump in DUI offenses between Blackout Wednesday and January 2[...]
Eyewitness testimony is undeniably a powerful form of evidence in criminal cases. However, there have been studies showing it is also one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions in Denver and across the United States. This suggests that human memory is not perfect and that some situations can lead to errors in identification.
In Denver, cases involving eyewitness misidentification span a wide range of crimes. You must defend against wrongful convictions, which requires a detailed review of the circumstances [...]
Violating a Colorado protection order can trigger a new criminal charge and contempt proceedings in the same court, and any new sentence must be served back-to-back with the sentence you were already facing, not at the same time. That means a single phone call, text message, or chance encounter can double your exposure while you are still on bond or probation. Denver criminal defense attorneys at the Law Office of Jacob Martinez have defended clients against these charges across Colorado [...]
A juvenile criminal record in Colorado can follow your child into adulthood, creating barriers to employment, housing, college admissions, and military service that many families do not anticipate. Colorado law provides a path to clear many juvenile records, but the process requires meeting specific eligibility criteria and often filing a formal petition with the court. The Law Office of Jacob Martinez helps families across Denver and Colorado protect their children’s futures through juvenile defense and record sealing.
How a Juvenile[...]