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Justice on hold: Lawmakers race to fix Colorado’s rape kit backlog
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Top Stories, Approved, Rocky Mountain Voice, State

Justice on hold: Lawmakers race to fix Colorado’s rape kit backlog

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice A backlog of 1,369 untested sexual assault kits at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation delays justice and drives significant costs, per a June 2025 report from the Common Sense Institute. Authored by former Denver DA Mitch Morrissey and Senior Analyst Erik Gamm, the report estimates clearing this backlog could prevent 1,481 crimes—including 1,030 sexual assaults—and save Colorado $234.7 million.  The Yvonne “Missy” Woods scandal, involving manipulated DNA in over a thousand cases since 2014, worsened this crisis, exposing gaps in CBI’s processes.  Two bills, HB25-1275 and SB25-304, address these issues, as Rep. Matt Soper (R-Delta), co-sponsor of HB25-1275, detailed in a Rocky Mountain Voice interview. The Wo...
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Colorado’s backlog leaves sexual assault survivors without answers, without closure
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Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Colorado’s backlog leaves sexual assault survivors without answers, without closure

By Bente Birkeland | Colorado Sun, CPR and Andrea Kramar Editor’s note: This story contains details of sexual assault and might be difficult for some readers. Originally published at cpr.org. It’s a situation Miranda Spencer never thought she’d find herself in. The Denver mom was going through a divorce in November of 2023, when she decided to try a dating app for the first time. She used Bumble.  “That’s one I thought was safe,” she recalled. After a few uneventful first dates, Spencer agreed to meet a man who had been persistently messaging her.  “So I let a friend know, ‘hey I’m gonna go out,’ and the exact words that I used were, ‘on this pity date. You can come over afterwards and hang out.’” Those ended up to be fateful words. She said she only remembers the fi...
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Colorado Democrats’ attempt to reduce gun violence is colliding with their criminal justice reform ethos
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Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Colorado Democrats’ attempt to reduce gun violence is colliding with their criminal justice reform ethos

By Jesse Paul | Colorado Sun When it comes to preventing gun violence in Colorado, there’s not much Democrats and Republicans agree on.  Getting gun rights and pro-gun regulation groups on the same page? That’s unheard of.  So when a bill was introduced in the legislature this year to increase penalties for stealing guns that brought those groups together, it seemed like a slam dunk. But the measure, House Bill 1162, was rejected in the House Judiciary Committee last week in a collision of two priorities for the Democratic majority at the Capitol: its desire to curb gun violence and its push to reduce the number of people being sent to prison. “We’re not going to incarcerate ourselves out of this,” said state Sen. Tom Sullivan, a Centennial Democrat and one of the leg...
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