Fidel Ramos was a criminal and a drug addict. He was also a smart and fearless man who had a central role in forcing the State of Colorado to transform its prisons from hellholes into something more humane. Ramos, who died of a brain hemorrhage at Sterling Correctional Facility last…
In an unusual court filing, state senator and prominent GOP campaigner Shawn Mitchell states that his battle with anxiety and depression has made it difficult to get work done in his law practice and political life, leading to blown deadlines and missed hearings and campaign events. The affidavit, filed in…
We can expect plenty of over-the-top negative ads and low blows in the next few days as this gruesome election cycle enters its final days. But a mailer sent out by Republican statehouse candidate Libby Szabo, trying to paint Rep. Sara Gagliardi as a typical tax-and-spend Dem, is just plain…
Complaints of substandard health care in the Colorado prison system are nothing new, but a newly filed lawsuit by one inmate, alleging that he was neglected in his cell while vomiting blood for three days, makes for particularly interesting reading. For one thing, Matt Mallory’s federal suit was filed by…
Here at the Criminal Affairs Desk, we get letters from inmates. Boy, do we get letters. But one recent missive from a Colorado prisoner offers some of the best advice we’ve ever heard for negotiating a long stretch in the state prison system. Such as: Don’t ask, don’t snitch. Keep…
Recent U.S. Census Bureau data shows that barely half of Boulder’s work force get to their jobs driving alone — a significant reduction in the number of solo commuters that puts the green-minded community well ahead of traffic planners in Denver and other Front Range cities who are trying to…
The folks behind Amendments 60 and 61 and Proposition 101, the three tax-slashing ballot proposals that a wide array of opponents are fighting with a multi-million-dollar ad blitz, are pretty upset with the media. So upset that campaign coordinator Natalie Menten fired off a letter to “media members” blasting them…
For years, the Bureau of Land Management has been aiming to remove substantial numbers of northwest Colorado’s remaining wild horses — despite a federal judge’s ruling last year that the agency has failed to prove that the obscure herds are overpopulated. Now, a coalition of activist groups have filed two…
“Who would you rather have protecting you? The man who unleashed a serial killer on Colorado, or Stan Garnett — the man who put the killer away?” That tag line from a new attack ad in the Colorado Attorney General’s race puts aside any doubt that we’re entering the campaign’s…
There’s more than one way to get mauled at a big-cat sanctuary. After he was attacked by a tiger at the Serenity Springs Wildlife Center last year, a volunteer then had the bite put on him by the refuge’s founder — who claimed that the victim had to pay $40,500…
In an interview in the October 15 issue of Rolling Stone, President Barack Obama defends his administration’s overhaul of the Department of the Interior amid agency scandals and outrage over the Gulf oil spill — and insists Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will keep his job, calling him “an outstanding public…
Candidates for public office often have to worry about skeletons in their closet. But in the race for Colorado Attorney General, it’s the bodies buried by ex-government informant Scott Kimball that could make a difference. AG John Suthers has been blasted by challenger Stan Garnett over his role in setting…
There was no shortage of opinions as the Public Utilities Commission took testimony from an overflow crowd about the state’s energy future last week. The heartfelt, often contradictory pleas came from people riled or galvanized by Xcel Energy’s $1.3 billion plan to convert several coal plants to natural gas to…
Cliff Warren is a man who minds his own business. That’s what he was doing around 1 a.m. one night in July last year, the night of the Big Incident. Fact is, he was snoozing in his bedroom in Lamar, a flat farm town of 8,900 people 200 miles southeast…
A series of letters from Bob Boswell, Republican candidate for state representative, urging lobbyists to “align yourselves and your clients” with his campaign, has prompted widespread cackling on political blogs. The former Western Sizzlin’ operator’s ham-fisted way of seeking donations sounds a lot like he’s putting his yet-to-be-won seat up…
Even under the best of circumstances, prison is an exercise in humiliation. But life just got a little less nasty for female inmates at the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility, who no longer have to spread open their genitalia for invasive cavity searches after a family visit. Pressure from the American…
When methheads start cooking their own product, they’re rarely as fastidious as Walt and Jesse in Breaking Bad. The cost of decontaminating a former lab can run into tens of thousands of dollars, as detailed in my feature “Toxic Shock.” And sometimes the best option is to raze the place…
Xcel Energy’s proposal to spend $1.3 billion to convert several of its aging, high-polluting coal plants to natural gas over the next decade in response to a new state law is drawing fire from coal interest and independent gas producers, but it’s a big hit with Colorado citizens interested in…
The town of Telluride is just weeks away from becoming the first municipality in the state to ban plastic bags at grocery stores and other retailers — a move that keeps the mountain town in the vanguard of high-country green gestures, right up there with Aspen’s designation of free parking…
Call us jaded. GOP gubernatorial hopeful Dan Maes has spun so many bizarre and jaw-dropping yarns, about everything from his generous mileage reimbursements to being fired as a Kansas cop because he dared to investigate his future in-laws’ gambling activities, that we’re no longer easily a-Maesed. Not even when a…
It’s hard to pick a favorite claim by GOP gubernatorial hopeful Dan Maes. His accounts of himself, from “I did so drive 80,000 miles” to his denunciation of Denver’s bike program as a UN plot to his boasts of undercover police work invite us into a realm hitherto unknown, at…
As the official public comment period ends for Christo’s “Over the River” project, the dialogue over the much-debated, $50-million landscape wrap seems to have devolved into two quite separate conversations. One has to do with the aesthetic merits and possible economic impacts of stretching six miles of silvery fabric over…
