The exercise in mass hysteria known as the Salem witch trials lasted little more than a year. Nineteen people were hanged, and one was pressed to death with rocks. Hundreds of others, mostly women, were accused of practicing the dark arts but spared execution. Fifty of them confessed to being…
Next month the Colorado Judicial Department will start charging interest on the court-ordered restitution that state prisoners owe to crime victims — a surcharge that was supposed to be imposed across the state under a law passed fifteen years ago, but which officials in many judicial districts neglected to collect…
A new study concludes that race and geography play a significant role in whether a criminal defendant faces the death penalty in Colorado, providing hard-numbers support to the objections about bias raised by Governor John Hickenlooper two years ago when he granted a reprieve from execution for convicted killer Nathan…
The Niyakko Rush, a youth soccer club comprised primarily of refugees living in a single apartment house in Aurora, scored free tickets to the Major League Soccer All-Star Game at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park on Wednesday night. And that wasn’t even the best part of the week. The true awesomeness…
A state inmate who was left a quadraplegic by police bullets during a bungled car-theft sting operation — and who subsequently filed a lawsuit against the officer who shot him — was quietly released from prison earlier this month on a special medical parole, after serving roughly one third of…
The Church of Scientology has been taking a series of body blows in recent years from journalists and former members, ranging from multi-city protests organized by the hacker collective Anonymous to Lawrence Wright’s New Yorker expose to the searing HBO documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, which features…
When you’re young and behind bars, it can be difficult to keep hope alive. And it can get even tougher after setbacks such as the recent Colorado Supreme Court decisions that did little to modify the sentences of 48 prisoners in the state prison system who are serving what amounts…
It’s a truism among criminal justice scholars that crime doesn’t pay — or, as the Denver Post used to sneer in big black type back in the heyday of Bonfils and Tammen, “Crime Never Pays.” Offenders who wind up with a prison record are less likely to find gainful employment…
It’s difficult to imagine a more severe form of long-term isolation than the past seven years of solitary confinement experienced by former Colombian rebel commander Simon Trinidad, the subject of this week’s Westword cover story, “Gone Guerrilla.” Serving sixty years for his (much-disputed) role in the kidnapping of three American…
Fifty years of bloody conflict in Colombia — thousands of deaths from firefights, sniper attacks, bombings, assassinations and mass executions — and it all comes down to this: a group of government negotiators and rebel leaders sitting around a big table, talking about land reform and crop subsidies and what…
In a move that could have resounding consequences for corrections practices and the for-profit prison industry in particular, a Denver federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by nine federal immigrant detainees, who allege that a private prison contractor forced them to perform maintenance and cleaning jobs for…
Reading Gregory Daurer’s novel A Western Capitol Hill is a bit like taking a long ride on the Number 15 bus — eclectic, disorienting, occasionally appalling, but never dull. Part picaresque, part political spoof, the ebook focuses on unsavory goings-on in the Denver of a decade ago, from the gold…
It took months of work by local activists, working in conjunction with a statewide land trust, a national conservation group, and other funding partners, but the backers of an innovative “healthy living park” in the heart of Alamosa have finally secured the money to complete the acquisition of 38 prime…
At tonight’s Denver City Council meeting, members will be reviewing an unusual cluster of big-ticket development projects, amounting to several hundred million dollars of proposed public expenditures and “in kind” giveaways of revenue and property. All of them have profound implications for Denver’s north side, and all are dear to…
Four dozen state inmates who are serving sentences of life without parole (LWOP) for crimes they committed when they were teens got a jolt of hope three years ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such mandatory sentencing schemes for juveniles were unconstitutional. Those hopes got crushed this month…
Anyone who’s slogged through this sodden spring in Colorado knows that our supposedly semi-arid climate can get downright wet sometimes. For longtime residents, the freak hail, mini-twisters and violent lightning storms of the past month or so might trigger a few memories of another soggy June fifty years ago that…
A Jefferson County man who’s spent the last thirteen years in prison for sexually assaulting his daughter may have been wrongly convicted and could soon be freed. But Mark Ellis, who has always maintained his innocence, isn’t out yet. That depends on whether the habeas corpus ruling by U.S. Senior…
Kelly Leid does not favor snap-button shirts, Wranglers and Tony Lamas. He’s more of a polo-shirt-and-khakis guy. The headgear on display in his office includes hard hats but no cowboy hats, ten-gallon or otherwise. Yet Leid, a Colorado native, has a soft spot for the state’s Western heritage, and he’s…
Denver’s Manual High School has endured more than its share of shakeups and losses over the past few years, including a 2006 shutdown of the place, over the protests of angry students and parents, followed by a much-heralded but tumultuous reboot. Now comes a public appeal from the school’s longtime…
A prominent Denver painter and video artist is suing the Colorado Department of Corrections, claiming that inadequate post-surgical treatment has left him with little use of his right hand. The complaint filed in federal court on behalf of Dan Ellier Chapman alleges that the conduct of prison medical staff displayed…
On May 3, 1965, an artist named Clark Richert became part owner of a six-acre goat pasture in Las Animas County, a few miles northeast of Trinidad. His former college buddy Gene Bernofsky wrote the $450 check for the land, and Richert paid for the utility hookup that would bring…
Everybody knows that crime doesn’t pay — at least, not in any of the 129 episodes of Dragnet available on Netflix. But one notorious state inmate has figured out how to make the risky business of breaking out of prison pay off. According to the terms of a hush-hush settlement…
