Leglislative impacts on DUI and ID

Governor Hickenlooper recently signed new legislation impacting DUI driver's license revocation hearings and criminal identification procedures.

HB15-1073 corrects a confusing and unreasonable decision handed down by the Colorado Supreme Court in Francen v. Dept. of Revenue, which held that, despite language in Colorado statutes permitting drivers to challenge the basis for police contact in appealing a driver's license revocation based on the Express Consent law mandating chemical testing of suspected impaired drivers, DMV hearing officers did not have to ignore evidence obtained from improper/unconstitutional vehicle stops.  The new law requires DMV hearing officers to suppress evidence resulting from an invalid or unconstitutional stop of an appellant driver, legislatively overruling Francen.

SB15-58 will require all state law enforcement agencies to adopt procedures relating to eyewitness identifications with the aim of improving the accuracy of suspect IDs.  Recent studies have shown that many witness ID methods employed by law enforcement are unreliable and susceptible to serious bias/error; this law will attempt to prevent past common procedures that have come to be proven problematic at best and utterly unreliable at worst.