Is trying juveniles as adults cruel and unusual?

The Denver-based Pendulum Foundation has made some significant progress in challenging the laws that can send juveniles to adult prison, serving life without parole for violent crimes committed when they were fifteen- or sixteen-years old — a wrenching issue Luke Turf explored in his 2005 feature “Headed For Trouble.” Now,…

Mile High Murder, No. 42: Homicide at 3042 Humboldt Street

View Larger Map Here’s a development sure to freak out residents living in the vicinity of 3042 Humboldt Street, an area captured in the graphic above (if you have problems seeing the image, click “View Larger Map”). Early this morning, the Denver Police Department responded to a burglary call at…

OMG! Douglas County teens face horrors of sexting

I am back from the front lines of the kiddie porn wars with some shocking news: The prosperous, sprawling suburbs of Douglas County conceal a steamy underbelly of underage sexual exhibitionism. Youth are being exploited right and left. Usually by each other. Sexting — the insidious, technologically inevitable, highly adolescent,…

Marine Lance Hering accepts plea for disappearing act

Marine Lance Hering so didn’t want to return to duty back in 2006 that he and a friend, Steve Powers, cooked up an elaborate story about his disappearance after injury in a Eldorado Canyon climbing accident. The tale and its aftermath (including his arrest in Washington state several months later),…

Renegade graffiti crew makes Capitol Hill hate peace

Give peace a chance? Not in much of Capitol Hill today. Over the weekend, a graffiti practitioner and/or crew with, presumably, a keen sense of irony, tossed up hastily scrawled peace signs on businesses, government buildings and even some private residences, much to the chagrin of those whose property was…

Your guide to recognizing terrorism: John Elway

Today, the hoi polloi of American law enforcement — Attorney General Eric Holder, FBI Director Robert Mueller, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske and Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli — will be in Denver to address the International Association of…

In the Florence pen, it’s risky not to join the riot

The dysfunctional high-security federal penitentiary in Florence has been the scene of all sorts of gang-related mayhem, from the grisly 1999 disembowelment of inmate Joey Estrella to the 2008 racial uprising in the yard, in which guards fired on brawling prisoners and killed two (as reported in “Life in the…

Shmuck of the Week: Alexis Williamson, aka the Horse Wispier

I’ve never owned a horse, or even horse-sat for that matter. So I can’t say for sure that I could properly maintain the nutrition of an equine if charged with such responsibility. If the horse didn’t like Ben & Jerry’s or the onion rings from My Brother’s Bar, he might…

Library flasher one book you don’t want to open

The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office is looking for a penis — one attached to the guy pictured here. On September 12 at around 1:30 p.m., he entered the Koelbel Library, 5955 S. Holly Street in Centennial, and promptly gave others in the facility a chance to check out… his man…

Think you’ve got a right to court records? Think again…

Over the past few years, the ability of journalists (or any private citizen, for that matter) to access various forms of public records in Colorado has been greatly diminished, from police reports to divorce filings. The loss of access to court records has been particularly aggravating, a bit of bureaucratic…

Channel 31’s Eli Stokols rides the Najibullah Zazi express

  Channel 4’s Rick Sallinger isn’t the only local TV type in New York City tracing the tracks of terror-suspect Najibullah Zazi. Eli Stokols, the go-to-guy for the two-headed Channel 31/The Deuce monster, is there as well. But the package above demonstrates why so few affiliates are willing to open…

Hope you’re taking notes about Zazi’s attorney, John Grisham

Another day, another article in a major publication implying that Arthur Folsom, the Denver-area attorney representing terror suspect Najibullah Zazi, couldn’t be more doomed to disaster if his legal background consisted entirely of watching season three of Night Court on DVD. This time, the doubt is slathered on by the…

DA Chambers cuts corners on a death penalty case again

Since she took over as district attorney five years ago, Carol Chambers has let wrongdoers in the Eighteenth Judicial District know that she’s going to hold them accountable. She’s pursued lengthy habitual-criminal sentences for low-level offenders, gone after opposing attorneys and truth-fudging cops, and even criticized judges for taking (and…

Read the book thrown at hep-C passer Kristen Parker

News broke late last week that Kristen Parker, the former Rose Medical Center surgical rep accused of passing hepatitis C to victims like those at the center of “Going Viral,” Alan Prendergast’s recent feature, would plead guilty to a potpourri of charges against her — and by Friday afternoon, she’d…