Today the Colorado Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of 2016 sentencing legislation relating to felony murder convictions for juveniles tried as adults.
The Supreme Court previously agreed to review the matter at the request of the District Attorney’s Office of the 18th Judicial District in the case of People vs. Curtis Brooks.
“I am thankful the Supreme Court agreed to accept review in this case and for their willingness to expedite the hearing and ruling on this important matter,” said District Attorney George Brauchler. “The justices only accept a small number of these applications, and they obviously did so here because they agreed it was an important matter for them to clarify on an expedited basis.
“I also want to thank Gov. John Hickenlooper for agreeing to hold off on a decision on Mr. Brooks’ clemency request, so the Colorado Supreme Court could decide this very import issue, which will now have statewide applicability.
“We raised this issue because we had doubts about the validity of this law,” Brauchler added. “The Supreme Court has now spoken, we know what the law is, and we accept that the ruling is now the law of our state. It is important that we now see that Mr. Brooks is back in court as soon as possible for re-sentencing under the 2016 legislation.”
