Author: George Brauchler
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COLUMN: Locals step up as state stands down in crime fight | George Brauchler
When it comes to addressing Colorado’s struggles with lawlessness, the Denver-Boulder progressive elites in control of the Gold Dome are at odds with the rest of our state. This tension between competing views of how best to achieve public safety and justice screams for more local control — not less. Could local control over other…
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COLUMN: Let’s make them serve more of their sentences | George Brauchler
Violent criminals should go to prison and for significantly longer than those convicted of other crimes. If that sounds like a “duh” statement, it is a novel concept for Colorado in the era of Democrat-controlled state government. Republicans want to make accountability fashionable again. State Rep. Mike Lynch, state Sens. Baisley and Will and eight…
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Let’s make them serve more of their sentences | George Brauchler
Violent criminals should go to prison and for significantly longer than those convicted of other crimes. If that sounds like a “duh” statement, it is a novel concept for Colorado in the era of Democrat-controlled state government. Republicans want to make accountability fashionable again. State Rep. Mike Lynch, state Sens. Baisley and Will and eight…
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COLUMN: We’ve devalued life — and reap the consequences
A little after 7:30 a.m., two weeks before the nation’s first presidential caucuses, a disgruntled and armed 17-year-old entered Perry High School in Iowa and murdered the principal, shot an 11-year-old to death, and shot four others before killing himself. The coverage was sudden, intense and short lived. The story was not the top of…
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COLUMN: Politicized justice is justice denied — on the left or right | George Brauchler
Last week, Donald Trump’s distant opponents for the GOP nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, each pledged to pardon Trump for, apparently, anything and everything for which he can be pardoned, if they are elected. Vivek Ramaswamy made the same pledge six months ago. This is all well before…
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COLUMN: Polis is flying blind on his clemency decisions | George Brauchler
Just before Christmas, Gov. Jared Polis pardoned 21 duly convicted felons and ended early the sentences of seven others. While I disagree with several of the cases — brace yourselves — I agree with Polis’ annual exercise of his constitutional clemency powers. Section 7 of Article 4 of our Colorado Constitution provides broad discretion to…
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COLUMN: Weiser, Polis gut state law — want feds to fight crime
This week’s proposal by Gov. Jared Polis and Attorney General Phil Weiser to use Colorado tax money to hire prosecutors to loan to the feds to prosecute laws in opposition to our own is as hypocritical as it is misguided. On March 12, 2021, less than one year after the George Floyd incident and despite…
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AG’s McClain case shape-shifts from trial to trial | George Brauchler
There is something rotten in Adams County. Attorney General Phil Weiser’s handling of the criminal prosecutions in the death of Elijah McClain has moved from mismanagement to ethically questionable, unfair and an abuse of prosecutorial discretion. The change.org petition-inspired assignment of the case by Gov. Jared Polis to Weiser; the unusually long delay in charges;…
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Tina Peters’ desperate legal gambit | George Brauchler
Last week, Tina Peters filed a federal lawsuit seeking to enjoin (to stop) everyone from seeking to hold her accountable for her efforts to surreptitiously copy Mesa County election data and distribute it outside of Colorado to so-called “experts” for the purposes of trying to prove the 2020 election — at least in Mesa County…
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COLUMN: AG is no prosecutor; McClain trials show it | George Brauchler
Earlier this week, an Adams County jury acquitted the last of the three Aurora police officers prosecuted by Attorney General Phil Weiser of killing Elijah McClain more than four years ago. In total, two juries for three defendants have unanimously rejected every one of Weiser’s hand-picked lead charges. Weiser guided the state grand jury to…