The Colorado Supreme Court recently upheld a lower court’s decision to reverse David Bueno’s first-degree-murder conviction because evidence that might have helped him was withheld in his death-penalty case. Michael Radelet, a University of Colorado Boulder sociology professor and author of The History of the Death Penalty in Colorado, the definitive work on its subject, sees the Bueno case as a particularly compelling argument in favor of ending capital punishment in the state once and for all, and he sees multiple possibilities for how it might finally happen.

Safety on the 16th Street Mall remains a major concern, as evidenced by the large amount of media coverage related to last week’s stabbing death of 29-year-old Derek Sorenson at a 17th and Welton 7-Eleven just steps away from the iconic Denver attraction. And while the 2016 implementation of a new safety plan appears to have decreased crime in the area overall, there’s still a considerable way to go according to our analysis of Denver Police Department data. Over the past month, 46 crimes have taken place on the mall, with sixteen happening on a single block.

Westminster’s James Mack is the latest Coloradan to be sentenced for mailing marijuana, and it’s no surprise that he earned considerably more than the one year in federal prison doled out to Arvada’s Mark Koenig for the offense last month. While Koenig was found guilty of shipping between 950 grams and 1.6 kilograms of cannabis during four incidents, Mack is said to have posted multiple pounds of pot to Kansas-based cohort Justin Polson on a weekly basis for nearly three years. And this won’t be Mack’s first trip to prison for a high-profile drug case. He was convicted in 2009 for his involvement in a cocaine deal that teamed him with former Denver Bronco Travis Henry.

The Colorado page of GunMemorial.org is eloquent in its simplicity. Under a slogan that reads, “Real People, Not Just Statistics,” the site offers an online place to salute, celebrate, remember and mourn every single person in the state who dies from gun violence, no matter the circumstances. Included are photos, links and places for family and friends to share details about loved ones whose lives ended so suddenly. Each item stands as an individual tribute, as well as a single image in a larger mosaic that illustrates how much pain, bloodshed and heartache involving firearms takes place in our state on practically a daily basis.

In February 2016, as we’ve reported, Brandon Johnson and William Lancaster were charged with felony manslaughter for selling Mark Largay fentanyl, a powerful opioid that wound up killing him. Two years later, Johnson has been sentenced for a lesser crime, distributing a controlled substance, but still must serve five years behind bars because of an aggravating factor. Johnson was confined in a community corrections facility in Denver when he took part in what proved to be a fatal transaction.