Who is the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition?

Our mission is to reverse the trend of mass incarceration in Colorado. We are a coalition of nearly 7,000 individual members and over 100 faith and community organizations who have united to stop perpetual prison expansion in Colorado through policy and sentence reform.

Our chief areas of interest include drug policy reform, women in prison, racial injustice, the impact of incarceration on children and families, the problems associated with re-entry and stopping the practice of using private prisons in our state.

If you would like to be involved please go to our website and become a member.


Friday, January 25, 2008

Rocky Ed - Take Them Off The Case

Peggy Hettrick's killer has enjoyed 21 years of freedom since that February night when he - and possibly an accomplice - murdered and mutilated her, leaving her body in a field. At times he must have marveled at his good fortune, and yet he never truly realized how lucky he was.

The killer couldn't know, for example, that police and prosecutors focused from the outset on a boy living near the crime scene who had a disturbing fascination with violent imagery; that they would give short shrift to other murder theories and continue to pursue that suspect after he'd grown; that they'd team with a forensic psychologist whose arrogant confidence in his ability to identify a probable murderer would propel them into the final mistake of arresting and charging Tim Masters with the crime.

The killer would almost certainly have heard of Masters' trial, but even then he could not have appreciated the full extent of his luck. Among other things, he wouldn't realize that Masters' defense was crippled by prosecutorial misconduct - its failure to share information that might have been used on the defendant's behalf.


Rocky Mountain News

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I hear about the attorney regulation board all the time yet do they ever do anything???? I personally reported a Denver county DA who suppressed evidence in a case against an inmate, alterred and hid a false police report, used a false PSI, to get a 6 year conviction against an inmate who supposedly wrote a letter which intimidated a public official. The inmate was in a adminstrative segregation unit,(23hr day lock down), the official has government immunity in her job. How could there been any intimidatio???
My point is, when the regulation council wont act against these people when a legitimate complaint is made, Isnt it time for the Governor of Colorado to stand up and do his JOB!! Your system is broken and it needs to be fixed. DJ