Friday, July 15, 2011

Denver criminal defense lawyer / what is post-conviction relief?

As a Denver criminal defense lawyer, one question I hear a lot is what sort of options a person has after being convicted of a crime. Although the vast majority of those who are convicted of crimes will end of just serving out their sentence and being released, paroled, or fined, the State of Colorado does offer a few options for those who want to challenge their convictions to the end. The first option is direct appeal, which I will talk about in a later post. After defeat on direct appeal, the convicted person may bring an action in Colorado District Court for post-conviction relief. Generally, this action will cover anything that he was not able to raise on appeal, including violations of rights under the Colorado and United States Constitutions. Post-conviction actions take two main forms.

By far the most common form of post-conviction relief action is a suit claiming the original Denver criminal defense lawyer performed ineffectively. Many times the trial attorney can make it impossible to properly appeal a case because he didn't object on the record. That means the Court of Appeals can't review that potential mistake by the trial court. Or it's also possible the Denver criminal defense lawyer didn't do a good job investigating the case. The standard in these cases is that the lawyer's conduct must fall below a reasonable standard of professional conduct. If the attorney had limited resources and made a reasonable decision on what to investigate, the court won't grant relief. Additionally, the defendant must prove at post-conviction that absent the attorney's mistake, there would have been a reasonable probability of a not-guilty verdict. So if the potentially beneficial avenue of investigation would not have changed the outcome, no relief is available.

The other common form of post-conviction relief action is against the prosecutor for misconduct. Generally this relates to evidence that was not disclosed during the discovery phase of the investigation. Since non-disclosure of relevant evidence is very serious, the burden here isn't quite as high. However, it also doesn't happen very much. Prosecutors know their convictions can be thrown out if they don't disclose, so they are scrupulous.

Next post will be about direct appeals. Stay tuned.

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