Cortez Vehicular Assault and Homicide Defense Lawyer
A crash that injures or kills someone can transform a driver from witness to defendant almost overnight. Colorado prosecutors treat vehicular assault and vehicular homicide as serious felonies, and Montezuma County cases carry real prison exposure. If you or someone close to you is under investigation or has already been charged, Reid DeChant at DeChant Law defends people facing these charges with the same tenacity he brings to every serious felony case. A Cortez vehicular assault and homicide defense lawyer needs to understand the science behind crash reconstruction, the way impairment is alleged and measured, and how local prosecutors build these cases. That preparation starts at the very beginning, not the week before trial.
What Colorado Actually Charges, and What Each Charge Carries
Vehicular assault under C.R.S. 18-3-205 is a class 4 felony when prosecutors allege reckless driving caused serious bodily injury. When DUI or DWAI is the alleged mechanism, the charge becomes a class 3 felony, carrying two to six years in the Department of Corrections with mandatory parole. These are not charges that resolve quietly.
Vehicular homicide under C.R.S. 18-3-106 follows a parallel structure. Reckless driving causing death is a class 4 felony. Add a DUI allegation and it escalates to a class 3 felony, with a presumptive range of four to twelve years in prison. A conviction for either offense also triggers a mandatory driver’s license revocation and can appear permanently on a criminal record.
Montezuma County sits at the intersection of US-160 and US-491, two federal highways with significant commercial truck traffic, tourist travel to Mesa Verde, and long stretches of open road. Crashes on these corridors draw investigations by the Colorado State Patrol, and serious collisions often trigger accident reconstruction from the start. By the time a driver hears from law enforcement, the investigation may already be well advanced.
How These Cases Get Built Against a Driver
Vehicular assault and homicide prosecutions rarely rest on a single piece of evidence. Prosecutors combine crash reconstruction reports, blood or breath test results, cell phone records, witness statements, dashcam footage, and sometimes data pulled from a vehicle’s event data recorder. Each of these sources can contain errors, gaps, or interpretations that deserve scrutiny.
Accident reconstruction is often treated as if it were exact science, but it involves assumptions. The reconstructionist chooses friction coefficients, interprets skid marks, and works from a scene that may have changed before measurements were taken. Those choices can be challenged. An expert retained early in a defense can identify where the reconstruction methodology is vulnerable.
Blood draws in DUI-linked cases raise their own issues. Colorado’s express consent law requires specific advisements before a blood or breath test. The timing of the draw matters because alcohol levels rise and fall, and a BAC at the time of the draw does not automatically equal the BAC at the time of driving. Chain of custody, lab procedure, and the qualifications of the analyst are all potential points of attack.
Cell phone records can suggest distraction, but they require careful interpretation. A record showing a call or text does not establish that the driver was actively engaged at the moment of impact. The timestamps need to be cross-referenced against the crash timeline, and that timeline itself may be disputed.
What Recklessness Actually Means in Court
The word “reckless” in a vehicular assault or homicide charge is not just a descriptor. It is a legal element the prosecution must prove. Recklessness under Colorado law means consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk. Negligence, even serious negligence, is not enough for the felony charges.
That distinction matters in Cortez cases. A driver who loses control on a wet curve on US-160 at night may have made a poor decision, but whether that decision rises to conscious disregard of a substantial risk is a jury question. The defense can argue that the driving behavior, however unfortunate in outcome, falls short of the statutory definition. The prosecution has to prove the mental state, not just the tragic result.
In cases where DUI is alleged alongside the crash, prosecutors often try to use the impairment as evidence of the reckless mental state. That makes the DUI defense component inseparable from the vehicular homicide or assault defense. Attacking the reliability of the BAC evidence, the validity of field sobriety testing, or the legality of the stop can undercut the entire theory of the case.
Questions People Ask When Facing These Charges in Montezuma County
Can I be charged with vehicular homicide even if the crash was not entirely my fault?
Yes. Colorado does not require a driver to be the sole cause of a crash. If prosecutors believe your conduct contributed to the death and meets the legal definition of recklessness or DUI, charges can follow even when other factors were involved. Comparative fault does not automatically defeat the charge, but it is relevant to the defense.
What happens to my driver’s license while the criminal case is pending?
If a blood or breath test was taken, Colorado’s DMV will pursue a separate administrative revocation proceeding that runs parallel to the criminal case. You have a limited window to request a hearing to contest that revocation. Missing the deadline can result in automatic suspension regardless of what happens in court.
Will I be arrested at the scene or later?
It depends on the circumstances. If impairment is suspected, arrest often happens at the scene. In cases where investigators need time to gather evidence, such as waiting for blood test results or completing reconstruction, charges may come days or weeks after the crash. Either way, anything said to law enforcement before an attorney is involved can be used against you.
How long does a vehicular homicide case take to resolve in Montezuma County?
These cases are rarely fast. Reconstruction reports, expert analysis, and lab results take time. A case that goes to trial may take a year or more from arrest to verdict. The Montezuma County District Court handles the felony docket, and preparation time is not wasted time. It is where the defense is built.
What is the difference between vehicular assault and vehicular homicide when the injuries are very serious?
The distinction is outcome based. Vehicular assault requires serious bodily injury to another person. Vehicular homicide requires that the victim died. If the injured person survives, even with catastrophic injuries, the charge is vehicular assault. If the person later dies from those injuries, the charge can be elevated or refiled as homicide depending on the timing and circumstances.
Can a vehicular assault conviction be sealed in Colorado?
Colorado’s record sealing laws have specific eligibility requirements, and felony convictions for vehicular assault or homicide present significant obstacles to sealing. Whether sealing is available depends on the specific outcome, the charge as convicted, and the time elapsed. This is something worth discussing after the case concludes, not a reason to accept a poor outcome now.
Do I need a lawyer who handles trials, or will this likely plead out?
Most cases that plead out do so because the defense is strong enough that the prosecution offers meaningful concessions, or because the defendant is fully informed about realistic outcomes. Hiring someone without trial experience can limit both options. Reid DeChant has taken serious felony and DUI cases to verdict, including not guilty outcomes, and that track record affects how prosecutors evaluate a case from the beginning.
Defending Serious Crash Charges in Southwest Colorado
Reid DeChant’s background as a public defender gave him direct experience with serious felonies across multiple Colorado counties, including assault cases tried to verdict. At Trial Lawyers College, he developed the courtroom storytelling approach that shapes how he presents a defense. That matters in vehicular homicide and assault cases because the prosecution will have a narrative, and the defense must construct one that accounts for all the evidence while giving a jury a reason to question guilt.
Cortez and the surrounding Montezuma County area generate cases that involve out-of-state drivers on highway travel, commercial vehicle accidents, and situations where alcohol or drug use is alleged at remote locations far from any hospital or testing facility. Those circumstances affect the evidence and the defense in specific ways. Understanding the geography, the roads, and the way local investigations proceed is part of being prepared.
DeChant Law handles cases in Cortez and throughout the region with the same approach applied to any serious felony: look hard at the evidence, find what is actually defensible, and commit to the fight.
Talk to Reid Before the Investigation Moves Further
Vehicular assault and homicide investigations move quickly in the days after a crash. Reconstruction gets done, witnesses are interviewed, and prosecutors start making decisions about charges. The earlier a defense attorney is involved, the better positioned you are to respond to what is being built against you. DeChant Law represents people facing vehicular assault and homicide charges in Cortez, across Montezuma County, and in surrounding areas of southwest Colorado. Contact the firm to speak with Reid about what the evidence actually shows and what a defense looks like in your situation.