Colorado Bar Association President's Message to Members
| Publication year | 1990 |
| Pages | 1783 |
1990, September, Pg. 1783. Colorado Bar Association President's Message to Members
On August 9, 1990, Chair Terry Kelly of Denver called to order the first meeting of the CBA Task Force on Criminal Justice and Drugs. The Task Force members include distinguished prosecutors Stu Van Meveren, Fort Collins, and John Suthers, Colorado Springs; criminal defense lawyers, Larry Pozner and Mike Bender of Denver; district judges Lynne Hufnagle, Denver, Tom Ossola, Glenwood Springs, and Jesse Manzanares, Trinidad; a representative of the academic community, Dr. Marianne Wesson of CU Law School; Dan Hall of the State Judicial Department; the Chair of the Criminal Law Section, Norm Mueller; and practicing lawyers, some of whom have criminal experience---Jim Bye, Denver, Sonny Flowers, Denver, Nick McGrath, Aspen, Randy Jorgenson, Pueblo, Rob Millman, Colorado Springs, and Carroll Multz, Grand Junction.
The Task Force's mission encompasses education, action programs and research.
Education means educating both lawyers and the public regarding the critical issues which face our criminal justice system. Lawyer education will include debates on such issues as the continued viability of the Exclusionary Rule and the desirability of minimum mandatory sentences and sentencing guidelines. The first of these debates was held at the CBA Board of Governors' meeting in Crested Butte in July. Mike Norton, the U.S. Attorney for Colorado, and Hal Haddon, a Denver attorney, debated Attorney General Dick Thornburgh's interpretation of the ethical rule prohibiting direct communications between prosecutors and witnesses represented by counsel. Similar debates will be held at each Board of Governors' meeting, and the programs may be reproduced for all interested local bar associations. Other lawyer education programs will result from the Task Force's deliberations during the year.
Public education programs will focus on the Bicentennial of the Bill of Rights and the question of whether or not the War on Drugs has become a War on the Constitution. By working together with the Colorado Supreme Court's Law Education Committee and the CBA's own Bill of Rights and Law Education Committees, a series of Town Hall meetings are planned...
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