How Colorado’s Mandatory Minimum Sentences Impact Drug Crime Defense
June 1, 2026
If you’ve been arrested for a DUI, you probably have many questions on your mind. This is understandable — getting caught driving under the influence, even for first-time offenders, can yield significant consequences.
Colorado is actually one of the toughest states in the nation for this offense. To help Coloradans facing a DUI charge, we answer a few of the most common questions we hear from our clients.
Remember that every DUI case is different, and that you should consult [...]
A DUI conviction is devastating. It can be life-altering in many ways. That said, if you are arrested for a DUI with a child passenger, you’ll face a whole new level of ramifications.
You are not only subject to severe criminal and civil penalties of an underlying DUI, (an average cost of $13,000). You will likely incur the separate, and potentially much more severe charge of a child abuse. Under Colorado child abuse law, driving drunk with a child in [...]
CODOT has tallied nearly 146k arrests since the inception of The Heat Is On, Colorado’s DUI enforcement period program. Three hundred and fifty of those arrests were made during New Year’s 2017 alone.
Needless to say, our state takes drinking and driving seriously, and so should you. If you’re reading this post, chances are good you still have time to plan this year’s celebration – and you haven’t finished planning until you’ve confirmed a safe and sober way home.[...]
As a responsible citizen, you are probably well aware of all the consequences associated with driving under the influence in Colorado. Not only does drinking and driving impair your ability to safely perform driving tasks such as steering and reacting to emergency situations, driving while intoxicated is highly illegal. Anyone who’s been arrested for a DUI before can assure you of the harshness of the legal consequences—there’s license suspension, heavy fines, and even jail time.
However, even if you know [...]
Following a DUI or DWI charge, it is not uncommon for a judge in Colorado to issue an order for an alcohol evaluation. An alcohol evaluation is one way for the court to determine whether or not your current rate of alcohol consumption makes you a risk to yourself or others and they are generally handled by treatment facilities, not police officers or legal personnel. Following an evaluation, the facility will present the results to the court, which will review [...]
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[...]A deferred judgment and sentence allows a first-time offender in Colorado to plead guilty, complete a period of court supervision, and then have the guilty plea withdrawn and the charge dismissed permanently. For someone facing their first criminal charge, this is often the best available outcome.
At the Law Office of Jacob Martinez, our Denver criminal defense team has negotiated deferred judgment agreements in Colorado courts since 2014.
How a Deferred Judgment and Sentence Works in ColoradoThe defendant enters [...]