- In Colorado, as with most jurisdictions, each crime is classified by its severity pursuant to the Colorado Legislature. The most serious are felonies. The most serious felony in Colorado State Courts is a Felony in the First Degree. (eg. First Degree Murder). The least serious felony is a Class Six Felony. All felonies carry either a mandatory or presumptive sentence to the Department of Corrections (prison). Misdemeanors are less serious than felonies, but still carry the possibility to incarceration in the county jail for up to two years and a day for the most serious. There are other types of offenses in Colorado that carry the potential for incarceration, such as criminal traffic offenses, petty offenses, and municipal offenses.
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- When it comes to seeking representation in a criminal case, it is imperative to meet with an attorney as soon as possible in order to protect your rights and work toward a quick resolution to your matter. In some cases, your rights need to be preserved as soon as you appear in front of a judge for the first time, or in as little as seven days after arrest. In addition, you may need advice as to how you conduct yourself while you are being investigated before the filing of formal charges or while your case is pending.
While you may not be able to contact an attorney before being booked if you are arrested and questioned, the investigation of your case only starts at this point, and an attorney should be contacted before you make any decisions regarding speaking or negotiating with the police or prosecution. Even if you do not have pending charges but believe you may have a potential criminal problem, an attorney can find out information from the police and represent you through an investigation or interview with a law enforcement agent.
No matter what you do, DO NOT SPEAK WITH LAW ENFORCEMENT. Your Miranda rights only apply if you are in custody and being questioned, but anything you say to law enforcement upon contact will almost always be admissible at trial. If you are contacted by police for suspicion of a crime, you should give the police your name, address and date of birth, but do not make any statements about anything else, no matter how innocent it may seem to you at the time to do so. Don't be belligerent or uncooperative, as this may just lead to more charges for obstructing a peace officer or resisting arrest. Your right to remain silent is embedded in our Constitution for a reason, and you can always arrange a meeting with law enforcement later, after speaking with an attorney and determining after careful deliberation that it is in your best interest to do so.
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- You need to contact the jail or detention facility he or she is at and request their bonding information. Provided in the links section of this site is a list of metro-area police departments and detention facilities. Also, refer to Colorado Judicial Department and Colorado Division of Insurance publication, Your Guide to Bail Bonds in Colorado (PDF File) for a detailed description of how bonds work.
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- The only way to truly make this determination is to sit down face to face with a criminal attorney. All presumptive sentencing ranges can be aggravated based on prior criminal history or statutorily aggravating circumstances in the case. Some general examples of this are the weight alleged in a drug sale, the injury to a complaining witness, the age of the complaining witness, the amount of prior criminal history, whether a firearm was alleged to have been present, or whether the client was already under the jurisdiction of the court when the charges are alleged.
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