{"id":18288,"date":"2019-09-08T11:47:39","date_gmt":"2019-09-08T17:47:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/?p=59947"},"modified":"2019-09-08T11:47:39","modified_gmt":"2019-09-08T17:47:39","slug":"grand-county-district-attorney-talks-bail-reform-reelection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/local-news\/grand-county-district-attorney-talks-bail-reform-reelection\/","title":{"rendered":"Grand County district attorney talks bail reform, reelection"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Prosecutor Matt Karzen is sworn in earlier this year as the district attorney of the 14th Judicial District by Chief Judge Michael O\u2019Hara. Karzen takes over for Brett Barkey, who announced his resignation as DA in May.<\/strong>
Courtesy John F Russell<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

CRAIG \u2014 The local 14th Judicial District Attorney doesn\u2019t like the way Colorado\u2019s bail and bond system has manifested itself in Northwest Colorado and wants the State Legislature to do something about it. <\/p>\n

At the Craig Press\u2019 monthly Coffee and a Newspaper on Wednesday, Aug. 4., Matt Karzen acknowledged the good intentions of some lawmakers not to jail poor suspects before they\u2019ve been convicted of crimes, but he said the actual effect on Moffat County and Northwest Colorado has been a vicious cycle of repeat felony offenders obtaining public recognizance bonds and release.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe in the DA\u2019s Office have been extremely frustrated particularly in Moffat County \u2026 with what seems to be a revolving door,\u201d Karzen said. <\/p>\n

Karzen added that the system is having affecting the morale of police departments locally and across the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe system is just letting them (offenders) back out without any real regard for the morale of agencies like the Craig Police Department,\u201d Karzen said.<\/p>\n

In an email, Karzen said police while police morale is important, it shouldn\u2019t be the primary concern.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile this is a concern, it is by no means the primary concern, and it\u2019s really more of an \u2018internal\u2019 concern as it can discourage good officers from staying on the job due to an understandable sense of futility,\u201d Karzen said Wednesday. \u201c\u2026 Public safety, community quality of life and a general sense of exasperation in the citizenry, are the priorities, and simply saying, \u2018no more monetary bonds,\u2019 without adopting a well thought-out, functional alternative, is both na\u00efve and ultimately dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Craig Police Chief Jerry DeLong said his officers often are frustrated with repeat offenders securing their release soon after being arrested. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s frustration on the officers part doing the best job they can do, and these folks are getting released via PR (public recognizance) bond or however they\u2019re released, somewhat quickly,\u201d DeLong said. \u201c\u2026The people we deal with over and over, there\u2019s no accountability at this time. We arrest them, and they\u2019re released from jail. We do that quite a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of those who are arrested and released are facing repeat drug charges, so addiction to drugs is almost always connected to crime in Moffat County, Karzen said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of our caseload \u2026 is related to narcotics, methamphetamine or heroin,\u201d Karzan said. \u201cIt\u2019s gotta be 75% to 90% of the crimes we deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Karzen suggested most of those suspects should be released on a case-by-case basis. <\/p>\n

\u201cNinety percent of the arrestees we see should be released pending disposition of their case without paying any money \u2014 we cannot incarcerate people for not being rich and call ourselves civilized,\u201d Karzen said in an email. \u201cBut, there are some offenders and some circumstances that clearly require, with regular judicial review to determine if it remains appropriate, pre-trial detention or a robust pretrial supervision program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Karzen suggested adopting pretrial services aimed at keeping drug addicts from reoffending and having compassionate responses to those who do relapse. Karzen lauded the efforts of Moffat County Sheriff KC Hume\u2019s medication-assisted jail treatment program that helps wean addicted persons in the Moffat County Jail off drugs, but Karzen said his agency doesn\u2019t have the resources for such services. <\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, we don\u2019t have any pretrial services in this jurisdiction,\u201d Karzen said.<\/p>\n

But that might change once Karzen collects several data sets related to the demographics of crime in Northwest Colorado. Once he does, Karzen plans on making the rounds to those with the power to do something about it. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to go to the legislature asking for funds until I have the data,\u201d Karzen said. <\/p>\n

The district attorney also touched on other subjects, such as Colorado\u2019s new red flag law and whether or not he\u2019ll seek reelection in November 2020. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo be clear, the red flag law is not really in my wheelhouse as a DA \u2013 the proceedings are civil and do not involve the DA\u2019s Office,\u201d Karzen said.<\/p>\n

But Karzen did questioned the way Colorado\u2019s new red flag law will be implemented. <\/p>\n

\u201cYes, we should keep firearms out of the hands of people that are dangerously mentally ill, but how do we do that?\u201d Karzan asked.<\/p>\n

Karzen said the legislation is a good start, but more needs to be done in a meaningful way. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the new legislation is a good start, that\u2019s all it is,\u201d Karzen said in an email. \u201cSo far, the state has not provided meaningful support to counties to enable them to help their addicted and mentally ill population and so I do think in the next couple of years we will need to face the reality that without significant state funding, local communities will have to consider allocating their own limited resources more aggressively if we expect to apply the new laws in a way that makes any real positive difference.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said while there hasn\u2019t been a red flag confiscation of any kind in Moffat County, he\u2019s confident anyone facing a red flag order will need an attorney as the gun owner bears the burden of proving he or she is mentally stable enough to possess firearms. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to succeed, you\u2019re going to need a lawyer,\u201d Karzen said.<\/p>\n

As for his reelection, Karzen said he\u2019d make that decision in the next three weeks.<\/p>\n

via:: Sky-Hi News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prosecutor Matt Karzen is sworn in earlier this year as the district attorney of the 14th Judicial District by Chief Judge Michael O\u2019Hara. Karzen takes over for Brett Barkey, who announced his resignation as DA in May.Courtesy John F Russell CRAIG \u2014 The local 14th Judicial District Attorney doesn\u2019t like the way Colorado\u2019s bail and bond […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18288","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 05:25:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}