District Attorney John Kellner, of the 18th Judicial District, and Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekly sat down with Highlands Ranch residents recently to provide updates on what’s happening in and outside of the court, crime and legislature. 

Discussion started with how the 18th Judicial District will soon be split into two with the formation of the 23rd Judicial District in November 2024.

The new judicial district will encompass Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties as the 18th Judicial District. 

Implementation of HB20-1026 will result in the 18th Judicial District, which currently includes Arapahoe County and Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties.

“There hasn’t been a new judicial district in this state for some 60 plus years,” said Kellner. 

Courtroom updates

Kellner also talked about several cases that he wanted to highlight in the area.

Kellner first spoke about People v. Jessica Stahl. 

Stahl was sentenced to 22 years for a fatal DUI in Parker. She was convicted at trial when the jury returned the verdict of vehicular homicide, vehicle assault and a child abuse charge as the defendant’s child was in the back seat when the incident took place and she fled the scene. 

Another case involving vehicular homicide is People v. Ricky Avalos-Trujillo. 

Last year, four teenagers from Castle View High School were struck head on by Avalos-Trujilo. Two of the students were killed and two sustained serious injuries. 

Avalos-Trujilo has been sentenced to 31 years for multiple counts of vehicular homicide, vehicular assault and careless driving. 

Weekly said the department takes traffic enforcement very seriously. 

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office has a separate traffic unit that requires additional training and when Weekly became sheriff, he increased the number of traffic officers. 

Currently, Douglas County’s DUI arrests are up 59% this year from the previous year, said Weekly. 

“That’s good and bad,” said Weekly. “Good because we’re catching these folks but bad because our DUI arrests are up and people are still drinking and driving.” 

Another high profile case in the county is the People v. Casey Devol. Devol has pleaded guilty to killing his sister and her boyfriend last year.

Weekly said it’s important for the community to know whenever there is a homicide case, detectives are working around the clock with the victim in mind. 

“You only get one chance to do it right the first time,” said Weekly. “So we are very thorough and methodical in what we do.” 

Transparency in numbers

The 18th Judicial District has a data dashboard available to the public to look at trends in cases filed and resolved over time. 

As part of that transparency, Kellner spoke about the Time to Felony Case Resolution. During COVID-19, the average number of days started spiking, elevated more in 2022 and now it is starting to go down and has reduced the average by 33 days.  

“The backlog of cases from slowing down and shutting down in the courts in some respects is still there for us,” said Kellner. 

The county currently has zero failure to appear in court, said Kellner. Just one failure to appear doubles the time to resolve a case. 

To help encourage people to appear in court, Senate Bill 22-018 Court Reminder Program went into effect last year. For misdemeanors and felonies, the bill allows for a program where they get three reminders that their court date is coming up. 

About 50% of those prosecuted do not have addresses in the 18th Judicial District, said Kellner, which means crimes are committed by outside residents looking for easy targets.

Douglas County is low hanging fruit, said Weekly as people tend to leave their garage doors open and keys in their cars.

“A lot of people come down here to commit crimes because there’s good stuff down here,” said Weekly. “People are vulnerable and they don’t realize it.”

However, motor vehicle theft for the first six months of this year is down 15% in the county, said Weekly. 

Weekly testified in favor of Senate Bill 23-097 Motor Vehicle Theft and Unauthorized Use.

It removes value as a threshold for the crime, said Kellner, and takes into consideration whether the individual knew they were in a stolen vehicle or reasonably should have known the vehicle was stolen as stolen vehicles can be passed along to people. 

All of these motor vehicle thefts are all felonies now with a few exceptions. 

“Motor vehicle theft is the nexus for most crimes committed,” said Weekly. “When people come down here to commit crimes, they are typically in a stolen vehicle.”

Another issue raised by those attending the meeting was fireworks. Weekly called this year an anomaly as different factors played into the situation, such as there not being a fire ban. 

The department strives to use voluntary compliance so they do not clog up the court system, said Weekly.

This year, deputies were down 71 calls for service, which means there's a call on the screen that they need to respond to that didn't have a cop available at the time. They had to prioritize calls. 

Weekly plans to be more proactive next year and start writing tickets. 

“I’m not minimizing the problem at all,” said Weekly. “I assure you as sheriff, next Fourth of July, we’re probably going to work things a little bit differently. I’m not saying we’re gonna charge every single person but we are going to hold people accountable.” 

As fall comes into view, Weekly said the sheriff's office is also preparing for a new school year. Weekly said they held active threat training with school resource officers and are having more conversations about how to increase deputy presence on campus.

“We are better prepared in Douglas County than in other places around our state,” said Weekly. 

Agency relationships 

Kellner and Weekly agreed that relationships outside of Douglas County and the 18th Judicial District are important in identifying trends in major crimes, gangs, drugs and more.

Douglas County is part of the The Regional Anti-Violence Enforcement Network, a multi-jurisdictional regional network of task force officers and federal partners focusing on violent crimes, gangs and drug traffickers. 

Among the 16 agencies included are the United States Attorney’s Office District of Colorado, Homeland Security Investigations, Colorado Air National Guard and multiple police agencies.  

“We have great relationships with our federal law enforcement partners,” said Weekly. “They offer us a great deal of resources that we would not normally have and I’ve got a lot of those resources at my fingertips.” 

As officer-involved shootings have received more national and local scrutiny over the last few years, Kellner and Weekly talked about the importance of transparency in following state laws where an independent third-party agency investigates the details of the shooting.

Kellner said the 18th Judicial District has created a Critical Incident Response Team to investigate whether officers are justified in their use of force.

Once their investigation is complete, the team makes a presentation to the district attorney where they determine whether the use of force was lawful or criminal. 

“If I decline to file charges,” said Kellner. “I’m required by law to post my reasoning on my website.” 

Due to the high volume of calls Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties have begun to form their own Critical Incident Response Team that will still report to the 18th Judicial District. 

To be part of the response team, Douglas County deputies must go through persons crime training and will become the lead detective. 

“We can send any detectives to do peripheral witness interviews or to gather evidence from different locations,” said Weekly. “The leads and the co-leads, those are detectives that handle felony crimes against persons to include homicide.”