Colorado Springs Divorce Attorney Blog

By Bill Edie, Attorney at Law, Gasper Law Group

Question: “My wife is going to get called as a prosecution witness in my criminal case. What do I do?”

Answer : “Stay happily married.”

Well, sometimes. Colorado, like many states, has enacted a statute, referred to as the “marital privilege,” which can prevent spouses from testifying against one another, even if they might otherwise be ready, willing, and able (and regardless of how critical they might be to the prosecution’s case). This privilege is purely a creature of state statute, not a constitutional right, and thus can be changed by the legislature at any time. Also bear in mind that every state is different in its details and applications, as is the federal system. Our discussion here is limited to Colorado.

Here’s generally how it works: If you are charged with a class 4 felony or below (details of classification of offenses in the State of Colorado can be found at the gasperlawgroup.com website), the state cannot call your spouse to testify against you about events she may have witnessed, (seeing you break into a car and stealing the stereo, for example) even if she is willing to do so. To invoke this privilege, you must be married at the time of the trial or hearing in question. If a pending divorce becomes final prior to your trial, her testimony is fair game, even if she does not want to testify against you.

There’s another component to class 4 felonies and below. As a general rule, confessions to crimes are admissible against the person making them. It does not have to be a police officer receiving that confession to have it come in against you. It could be your boss, your bartender, your cell mate in jail, or your best friend. Again, Colorado’s marital privilege comes to the rescue. If you later confess privately to your wife to committing that car break-in, you can prevent her from testifying to the confession, regardless of her wishes. In this case, what is critical is your marital status at the time of the confession, not your status on the day of trial. So, as long as you’re married when you confess, she can’t nail you at trial even if the divorce has since become final, and even if she wants you to suffer. But never, ever, confess to your ex-wife, even if you’re still close. All bets are off.

Continue reading " “What’s Love got to do with it?” - Spousal Privilege in CO. " »

By Carrie E. Kelly
Attorney at Law
The Gasper Law Group

Chances are, if you’ve come to this article, you’re either contemplating filing a divorce or you’ve recently been served with divorce paperwork and are wondering what the heck the next six months of your life will look like. The intent of this article is to give you a basic idea of how a typical divorce progresses so that you have some idea what you’re going to be facing. Depending on your particular case, there may be a need for additional hearings or emergency motions, but most cases will fit into this basic roadmap.

Step One: The Initial Status Conference

The Initial Status Conference is usually held 30 days after the divorce is filed. There are two goals of the Initial Status Conference. The first is for the parties to let the judge know what issues are going to be involved in their case. There are five potential issues in every case: spousal maintenance, parental responsibility/parenting time, child support, division of debt and division of property. Not every potential issue applies in all cases, so the judge will want to know what your particular case involves.

The second goal is for the judge to give the parties deadlines and to schedule a Temporary Orders Hearing. If you have children, you will receive information on the mandatory parenting class. If you haven’t already completed your initial financial disclosures, you will be given a deadline. If you think you may have a need for either a parenting evaluator or a financial expert, you will be given a deadline for requesting the appointment of an expert. And finally, if you have already reached any agreements, the judge will include them as part of your order.

Expect this court date to take approximately 15 minutes

Step Two: The Settlement Conference

Sometime after the Initial Status Conference but before the Temporary Orders hearing, you’ll need to participate in a settlement conference. The Settlement Conference only needs to cover the Temporary Orders issues. We don’t need to decide who is going to take on the Visa and the Mastercard on a permanent basis, we only need to decide who is going to pay the minimum monthly balance while the divorce is pending. It’s important not to get too far ahead of yourselves.

The only real requirement for a settlement conference is for each party to inform the other party what they intend to ask for at the Temporary Orders Hearing and to make an attempt at finding any common ground. How exactly this is arranged is up to the parties. The most common scenario is for the parties and the attorneys to all meet at one attorney’s office and have a face to face discussion. If this can’t be arranged (due to work schedules, for example) or is undesirable (often victims of domestic violence are uncomfortable with this set up), a telephone conference may be set up or the attorneys may even trade proposals back and forth over a period of days.

Step Three: The Temporary Orders Hearing

If you had a successful Settlement Conference, you will not need to have a Temporary Orders Hearing at all. If you settled some, but not all or none of the Temporary Orders issues, then you will need to have either a partial or full hearing.

Temporary Orders hearings are generally held 30 days after the Initial Status Conference, but the exact timing will depend on the court’s calendar and the availability of the parties. The hearing typically lasts one hour which means you will only get ½ hour to both present your case and to cross examine the other party. This is a very limited amount of time so it is important that you stay focused during your testimony.

At the end of your Temporary Orders Hearing, the judge will issue orders about temporary spousal maintenance, temporary use of marital property, temporary payment of marital debts, temporary parenting time and temporary child support. These orders are temporary in that they are in effect while your divorce is ongoing. The judge will revisit all of these issues at the Final Orders Hearing, but in the meantime, these are the orders of the court and you must comply with them.

Continue reading " Dissolution of Marriage Roadmap " »