H. Michael Steinberg has 42+ years of experience practicing Colorado criminal law. Mr. Steinberg strives to stay current with the ever changing aspects of criminal law issues and updates resulting in his extensive knowledge of successful criminal defense as well as appellate work. He is also an active member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar Association, the Colorado Trial Lawyer's Association, and the Colorado and Arapahoe Bar Associations.
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Domestic Violence Conviction and Gun Rights in Colorado

By H. Michael Steinberg, Colorado Criminal Defense Attorney | November 3, 2026 | Domestic Violence

A domestic violence case in Colorado is never only about the charge. It can also put your firearms, your hunting and sport-shooting life, and in some careers your livelihood at risk. The gun consequences can begin with a protection order on day one and, after certain convictions, can last for life under federal law.

With more than forty years of Colorado criminal law and defense experience, I see clients every year who learn about the firearm consequences only after a plea has been entered.

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Colorado Criminal Defense

How a Colorado Trial Lawyer Prepares for Difficult Cases

Inside the investigation, discovery review, motions practice, and jury strategy that go into defending a serious criminal case in Colorado.

By the Law Office of H. Michael Steinberg | Denver Criminal Defense Attorney | October 31, 2026

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A Guide to White Collar Defense in Colorado

White collar cases rarely begin with handcuffs. They begin with a records request, an auditor’s question, a bank’s suspicious activity report, or a friendly call from an agent who says they just want to “clear a few things up.” By the time a charge is filed in Denver District Court or the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, investigators have often spent months or years assembling the documents, emails and bank statements that tell a story about what you supposedly knew and intended.

This guide explains how white collar defense in Colorado works: the state and federal crimes charged most often, how penalties are measured, who investigates, how long prosecutors have to file, and the defenses that matter most. It is written for business owners, executives, bookkeepers, healthcare providers, investment professionals, and anyone who has just learned they are the subject of an inquiry.

A Guide to White Collar Defense in Colorado.
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Colorado Marijuana vs. Alcohol DUIs
Colorado Marijuana vs. Alcohol DUIs

A Colorado DUI is a DUI whether the allegation involves a beer, a “joint,” a prescription pill or a mix. But the proof looks very different. An alcohol case usually turns on a breath or blood number measured against a bright-line 0.08 limit. A marijuana case has no bright line at all: prosecutors lean on a blood THC level, an officer’s observations and, often, a Drug Recognition Expert’s opinion, and each of those can be questioned in ways an alcohol case cannot.

I am H. Michael Steinberg, a Denver criminal defense attorney with more than 40 years of experience. This guide walks through how Colorado law treats alcohol and marijuana DUIs, how the testing works, what the evidence really shows, and where a defense typically begins. It reflects Colorado law and agency sources as of October 27, 2026.

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Quick Answer

To challenge a search warrant in Colorado after a home raid, your attorney first obtains the warrant, the sworn affidavit, and the return, then files a motion to suppress and for return of property under Crim. P. 41(e). The motion can attack probable cause, particularity, the way the warrant was executed, or false statements in the affidavit. If the court agrees, the evidence and its fruits are excluded unless the prosecution proves the good-faith exception applies. The sooner a defense lawyer reviews the paperwork, the more options you keep.

Officers arrive early in the morning. Someone hands you a stack of papers, and for the next several hours strangers go through your bedroom, your closets, your phone, and your files. Whether the raid involved drugs, a fraud investigation, a sex-crime allegation, or something else, the warrant is the government’s permission slip. If that permission slip was defective, the evidence officers carried out of your home may never reach a jury.

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Quick Answer

No, not automatically. Contacting a witness or victim is not, by itself, witness tampering. Under C.R.S. § 18-8-707, the prosecution must prove that you intentionally attempted to induce the person to testify falsely, withhold testimony, skip a proceeding they were legally summoned to, or avoid a summons, and that you did it without a bribe or threat. The crime is a class 4 felony.

But the contact can still be a serious problem. A mandatory protection order or a bond condition may forbid all contact, so a harmless text can be charged as a separate crime. And what you say matters. Asking a witness to “drop the charges” or “not show up” is exactly the conduct prosecutors charge.

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What Counts as a Colorado DUI Probation Violation?

Probation after a Colorado DUI is a deal. You avoid more jail, and in exchange you follow a long list of rules. When a client calls me and says, “I think I may have violated my probation,” the first thing I do is sort what happened into the right category.

Some problems are fixable with a phone call and a receipt. Others put your probation, and your freedom, at real risk.

This article explains what the law treats as a DUI probation violation, how the court handles it, and what is actually on the table if the court finds one. The core rules live in C.R.S. 42-4-1307 for DUI sentencing and in C.R.S. 16-11-205 and 16-11-206 for revocation.

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By Colorado Criminal Defense Lawyer H. Michael Steinberg  |  October 20, 2026

When a felony charge lands, the first instinct for many defendants is to get it over with. In Colorado, one of the earliest decisions in a felony case is whether to demand a preliminary hearing, a short courtroom proceeding where a judge decides whether the prosecution has enough evidence to justify moving the case forward. In our experience, roughly nineteen out of twenty are waived. That is often the right call, but it should be a decision, not a default.

This guide explains what a Colorado preliminary hearing is, the probable cause standard judges apply, when a person charged in Colorado is entitled to a preliminary hearing, the short deadline to ask for one, and the practical ways a “prelim” can help a defendant even when the case is not dismissed. This article reflects Colorado’s statutes, court rules, and decisions current as of October 20, 2026.

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Colorado law asks a jury to consider everyone who reasonably appeared to threaten you, not just the person whose punch landed first.

Quick Answer

Colorado does not give a special rule for multiple attackers, but it does something just as important: the jury must weigh the number of people who reasonably appeared to threaten you when deciding whether your fear and your response were reasonable.

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QUICK ANSWER

In People v. Vanpelt, 2026 CO 66 (decided October 12, 2026), the Colorado Supreme Court held that a defendant’s statements and handwritten apology letter from a 75-minute jailhouse interrogation were voluntary under the due process clause, even though the prosecution conceded he never received a proper Miranda advisement. Because the detectives’ conduct did not overbear his will, the statements are not barred for every purpose.

They remain off-limits in the prosecution’s case-in-chief because of the Miranda violation, but the voluntariness ruling keeps open the possibility that prosecutors use them to impeach him if he testifies.

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