Masterful Post-Conviction Practice
Daniel Kent is one of the most experienced and well respected post-conviction attorneys in Colorado. He provides mentoring and training for attorneys new to the field and loves to tackle the biggest cases himself. Let’s get your loved one home.
Get In TouchCommitment and Passion
Daniel prides himself on his skill in post-conviction litigation, otherwise referred to as “35(c)”, based on the rule of criminal procedure that allows it. Post-conviction is usually your last shot, and Daniel knows that, putting everything he’s got into you or your loved one’s case. Unless you’ve been fortunate enough to preserve your federal habeas claims, 35(c) litigation is the end of the road for most clients. Daniel cares deeply about each of his clients and is committed to getting them home.
Expertise and Success
Daniel has been successful at winning release, vacating convictions, and reducing sentences in all kinds of cases, from murder to DUI. He knows how to walk clients through the fiery crucible of post-conviction/35(c), acutely aware that they may spend the remainder of the life behind bars if he does not win. There is no room for error in these cases. They must be litigated with great attention to detail and the utmost strategy.
Co-Counseling – A Special Note To My Colleagues
If you are an attorney with a complex post-conviction case, I’m here to help. I’ve walked multiple attorneys through every kind of postconviction case – multiple first degree murders, numerous sexual assault cases, crimes of violence, and habitual criminal cases to list a few. I’ve tackled all of the procedural hurdles too: time-bar, successiveness, forfeiture for failure to raise on appeal, and the doctrine of laches.
With the recent release of Erlinger, there is no time to waste challenging habitual criminal sentences. I worked as a subcontractor or “of-counsel” with numerous successful law firms.
Further, if you have a trial case but your client has felony convictions, contact me. I’ll litigate the suppression of those so he or she can testify without impeachment or quash habitual criminal sentencing. This stuff is hard. Please reach out to me, and I can help you through it.
My clients come first. Always. You deserve an expert willing to fight for you. That’s why I’m here.
Frequently Asked Post Conviction Law Questions
Post-conviction litigation is brought in the state of Colorado by Crim. P. Rule 35. The claims range from correcting illegal sentences, to sentence reduction, to vacating convictions and sentences obtained in violation of the constitution.
Post-conviction, particularly brought under 35(c), is all about finding justice for the wrongfully convicted, the over-sentenced, or the client who got railroaded. If you’ve heard of organizations like the Innocence Project, they’re doing post-conviction or federal habeas work (more on this in a minute). I’m out digging up new evidence, interviewing witnesses who were never interviewed, picking through the police and prosecutor’s file for information never disclosed, testing old evidence, and consulting with experts on your case.
Under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, every criminal defendant has a constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel. The seminal case on this is Strickland v. Washington. In Strickland, the Supreme Court set out a two part test to determine if a conviction should be vacated for ineffective assistance of counsel that boils down to (1) did the lawyer perform below the prevailing professional norms and (2) did that deviation undermine confidence in the outcome? This applies to pleas and jury trials and is incredibly fact dependent.
I’ll be using post-conviction and 35(c) interchangeably here. The way a case generally proceeds is trial phase (jury trial or plea), direct appeal, and then postconviction.
Post-conviction litigation is all about deadlines and timing. The link above contains many of the timing requirements. They differ for the nature and level of conviction. You can find some of those deadlines in 16-4-502, C.R.S. and 42-4-1702, C.R.S.
But this gets further complicated when trying to preserve your ability to seek federal habeas relief. Call me so we can discuss.
The very, very end of the line is filing a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court. The timelines for this are actually shorter under AEDPA than your state post-conviction deadlines. You need your state post-conviction petition in around a year after the conviction became final through appellate mandate (or sentencing if you took a plea) to stop the clock on your federal habeas relief. While habeas is generally a shot in the dark, if your loved one is serving a life sentence, you want to preserve every avenue you can.