Adams County Vehicular Assault and Homicide Defense Lawyer
Charges of vehicular assault or vehicular homicide in Adams County carry a weight unlike most criminal allegations. A driving incident that results in serious injury or death transforms what might have been a traffic stop or accident investigation into a felony prosecution with years of prison time on the line. Attorney Reid DeChant has defended serious felony charges at trial across Adams County and the Denver metro area, including cases where the government had compelling evidence and still failed to secure a conviction. If you are at this stage, the legal decisions made in the next days and weeks matter enormously.
What Colorado Law Actually Charges in These Cases
Vehicular assault and vehicular homicide are distinct statutory offenses under Colorado law, and the specific theory the prosecution pursues determines the penalty range and the defense approach.
Vehicular assault occurs when a driver causes serious bodily injury to another person. The offense is charged either as DUI-based vehicular assault or recklessness-based vehicular assault. The DUI theory is a class 4 felony and does not require proof that the driver acted recklessly, only that impairment was a proximate cause of the injury. The recklessness theory is a class 5 felony and requires proof of a conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk. The difference between these two charging theories matters because the sentencing ranges differ and the defenses available differ as well.
Vehicular homicide follows the same structure. When prosecutors allege DUI-based vehicular homicide, they are pursuing a class 3 felony, carrying a presumptive sentencing range of four to twelve years in the Colorado Department of Corrections, with possible aggravated sentencing beyond that range in certain circumstances. Recklessness-based vehicular homicide is a class 4 felony. In cases involving fatalities, prosecutors in Adams County frequently add charges such as careless driving causing death, which can affect plea negotiations and how the case is framed to a jury.
Adams County’s courts, located in Brighton, handle these cases through the 17th Judicial District. The district attorney’s office there has historically pursued felony DUI and traffic fatality cases aggressively, and law enforcement agencies including the Adams County Sheriff’s Office and local police departments conduct thorough accident reconstructions before charges are filed.
How Accident Reconstruction and Toxicology Evidence Gets Challenged
These cases almost always turn on expert evidence. The prosecution will typically present an accident reconstructionist, a toxicologist, and often a medical examiner or trauma physician. Understanding how to engage with each of those presentations is central to building a defense.
Accident reconstruction is not an exact science. Reconstructionists rely on physical evidence at the scene, vehicle damage patterns, tire marks, road geometry, and witness accounts to calculate speed, point of impact, and contributing factors. Their conclusions depend on assumptions that can be tested. Were the skid marks properly measured and documented? Were contributing factors like road conditions, lighting, or the other driver’s actions fully accounted for? Were any alternative explanations for the physical evidence excluded without justification?
Toxicology is another area where the defense has real work to do. In DUI-based vehicular assault or homicide cases, the prosecution must establish not just that a substance was present in the defendant’s system but that it caused impairment that proximately contributed to the accident. Blood draw timing, chain of custody, lab protocols, retrograde extrapolation of BAC levels, and the interaction between prescription medications or cannabis metabolites and actual driving impairment are all legitimate areas of scrutiny. Colorado’s per se limits do not resolve the question of causation, and a defense attorney needs to understand the science well enough to expose the gaps.
The proximate cause element is frequently where these cases are most vulnerable to a defense challenge. The government must prove that the driver’s impairment or recklessness caused the injury or death, not merely that an accident occurred while the driver was impaired or driving carelessly. When another driver’s actions, road hazards, mechanical failure, or victim conduct contributed to the outcome, that is relevant to whether causation can be established beyond a reasonable doubt.
DMV and Criminal Case Consequences Running Simultaneously
A vehicular assault or homicide arrest in Colorado almost always triggers parallel proceedings. On the criminal side, felony charges move through Adams County District Court. On the administrative side, the DMV may initiate action against the driver’s license based on the same underlying conduct, particularly when impairment is alleged.
The DMV process has its own timeline and its own evidentiary standards, which are more lenient than the criminal standard. A driver can lose their license at a DMV hearing even if the criminal case is ultimately dismissed or results in an acquittal. The reverse can also happen: the record built at a DMV hearing can sometimes affect how the criminal case unfolds. Managing both proceedings together, rather than treating them as independent problems, is part of what a thorough defense requires in these cases.
For certain clients, additional collateral consequences attach immediately. Commercial drivers face CDL disqualification. Non-citizen clients face immigration exposure that can be more serious than the criminal sentence itself. Pilots and medical license holders face professional licensing boards with their own investigation timelines. These downstream consequences are not hypothetical concerns; they often shape what the best outcome in a case actually looks like.
Questions People Ask About These Charges in Adams County
Can vehicular assault or homicide charges be reduced to a misdemeanor?
In some cases, yes. Reduction to a misdemeanor offense such as careless driving causing injury is a possible outcome depending on the strength of the evidence, the specific facts, and the charging theory. DUI-based felony theories are harder to reduce because they carry mandatory sentencing provisions, but recklessness-based charges offer somewhat more flexibility in negotiations. Whether a reduction is realistic in a given case depends on a careful evaluation of the evidence before any discussions with the prosecution begin.
What does a proximate cause defense actually look like at trial?
A proximate cause defense focuses on showing that another factor, not the defendant’s conduct, was the actual cause of the injury or death. This might involve demonstrating that another driver made an unexpected maneuver, that a road defect was a contributing cause, or that the victim’s own actions were the primary factor. It requires expert testimony in most cases and a clear narrative that the jury can follow. Reid’s background in trial work and storytelling in the courtroom directly applies to presenting this kind of defense effectively.
What happens if someone dies after the incident, even though they were initially injured?
Colorado law allows the government to amend charges from vehicular assault to vehicular homicide if a victim dies after the initial incident. The prosecution must still establish that the driving conduct was a proximate cause of the death. Defense of these amended charges raises questions about intervening medical care, preexisting conditions, and whether the original injury, rather than the driving conduct, was the actual cause of death.
How long do these cases take to resolve in Adams County?
Felony cases in the 17th Judicial District typically take many months from filing to resolution, and cases that proceed to trial can take a year or longer. Accident reconstruction reports, toxicology analysis, and expert preparation all take time. A rushed defense is rarely a good defense in these cases, and building the record properly from the early stages pays dividends later.
Can a felony conviction for vehicular homicide be sealed in Colorado?
Colorado’s record sealing laws do not currently permit sealing of most felony convictions involving traffic fatalities. A dismissal or acquittal, however, may create eligibility for sealing, which is one more reason the outcome at trial or through pretrial motions carries long-term significance beyond the immediate sentence.
What is the role of the accident reconstruction expert in the defense?
In serious cases, the defense may retain its own accident reconstruction expert to review the government’s work, identify methodological errors, and if warranted, offer an alternative analysis of how the accident occurred. This is not automatic in every case, but when the government’s reconstruction is central to proving how the incident happened, having an independent expert who has reviewed the same evidence is often essential.
Does it matter which Adams County law enforcement agency investigated the crash?
It can. The Adams County Sheriff’s Office, Commerce City Police, Thornton Police, Westminster Police, and other agencies operating within the county have different training and protocols for crash investigation. The quality and completeness of the initial investigation, including how the scene was documented, how witnesses were interviewed, and how evidence was preserved, affects what the defense has to work with and what challenges are available.
Defending Serious Felony Traffic Charges Across the Denver Metro
Reid DeChant has handled felony cases in Adams County and surrounding jurisdictions, including Denver, Broomfield, Jefferson County, Arapahoe County, and Douglas County. His experience as a public defender gave him direct exposure to serious felony prosecution from the inside, including cases involving assault, homicide, and sexual assault. That foundation is what serious vehicular assault and homicide defense requires. Clients facing Adams County vehicular homicide or vehicular assault charges can reach DeChant Law for a direct conversation about the specific facts of their case and what a realistic defense looks like from here.