Speedy Trial Deadline Blown – Violation Undoes Sex Assault Conviction As Colorado Court Orders Dismissal With Prejudice

Judge Johnson had a problem every trial judge in America knows intimately—too many cases, not enough courtroom time, pandemic backlogs stretching into infinity. So he reached for what looked like a lifeline: a 2021 Colorado statute that allowed courts to push trials back up to three months “to account for the backlog created by the pandemic.”Reasonable solution, except for one fatal detail that would ultimately torpedo a conviction—that provision had been dead for eight months.

The COVID-19 trial extension expired in April 2022. Judge Johnson invoked it in August 2022 to schedule Mares’ trial for January 2023. The Court of Appeals panel, led by Judge Ted C. Tow III, didn’t mince words about this timing problem: “no continuance could be granted under that provision after that time.”

What followed was a courtroom chess match that reveals how technical legal arguments can decide real human outcomes. Days before the January trial, Mares’ attorney filed a motion to dismiss, citing the speedy trial violation for the first time. The prosecution’s response? A multi-pronged attack claiming Mares had waived his right to challenge the expired provision and that defense delays had caused the scheduling conflicts anyway.