Colorado Premier Criminal Defense Attorneys
More than 40 years of combined experience
Polansky Law Firm is a Top rated criminal defense law firm handling misdemeanors and felonies in both state and federal court. The Polansky Law firm handles juvenile and adult criminal defense matters in federal court and state court throughout Colorado. While based in Boulder, Colorado, Polansky Law Firm Attorneys serve Adams, Boulder, Denver, Gilpin, Jefferson, Larimer and Weld Counties.
The Firm has had substantial success in dealing with charges including sexual assault, assault, domestic violence, drug possession, fraud, tax evasion, conspiracy to distribute drugs, weapon possession and murder. Results include dismissals and acquittals at trial. While we make no guarantees, Polansky Law Firm can win even when all seemed lost and the sentence was life without possibility of parole.
Please contact us should you find yourself under investigation or have a pending case or if you would like to appeal a conviction or petition the court regarding a conviction or sentence.
PRESS RELEASE:
December 23, 2019:
ERIK JENSEN RECEIVES GOVERNOR’S COMMUTATION!
Today, Governor Jared Polis granted our client, Erik Jensen, Clemency. We have been representing Erik, along with our colleagues, Attorneys Jane Fisher-Byrialsen and Peter Sauer, for about four years and have litigated in the courts to no avail, pursued a new plea bargain with the prosecutor with no success, and even been denied once for clemency last year, but not this time! Our team was successful in our request to Governor Polis. Erik was originally sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole in 1999. At age 17 he was convicted as a complicitor in a tragic murder committed by Nathan Ybanez. Erik was resentenced last year to the only sentence available to him, to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 40 years. He has already served 21 years and has become a man committed to his faith and to service. His family and friends welcome his return, hopefully soon!! He is eligible for parole immediately, and we wish him well and are so grateful to the Governor for this holiday gift!
Past releases:
June 16, 2019
FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF LORENZO MONTOYA’S RELEASE!
Lisa Polansky as lead counsel for young man wrongfully convicted at age 15
released after 14 years in prison on a sentence of life imprisonment.
Denver, Colo. – 
Lorenzo Montoya was released from prison June 16, 2014 after reaching a plea deal days before a scheduled hearing that would have revealed significant Constitutional flaws in his conviction and new evidence casting serious doubt on his guilt. In January 2000, then fourteen-year-old Montoya was one of three Denver teens arrested and charged for alleged involvement in the brutal murder of a north Denver schoolteacher. Mr. Montoya, later convicted of felony murder and other charges, was sentenced to mandatory life without parole.
Mr. Montoya, now represented by lawyers from the Colorado non-profit Center for Juvenile Justice, a team of court appointed counsel, and a team of pro bono lawyers and paralegals from the law firm Cooley LLP, filed a petition in June 2013 in Denver District Court challenging his convictions. The challenge was based on egregious Constitutional violations, including ineffective assistance of counsel and incompetence to stand trial, and new evidence, including DNA.
Montoya’s new counsel, Lisa A. Polansky, Elizabeth Espinosa Krupa, and Peter J. Sauer, also succeeded in obtaining new DNA testing that produced powerful evidence of Mr. Montoya’s innocence. Additional new evidence included Montoya’s co-defendant, Nick Martinez, telling defense investigator, Gina Brovege, that Mr. Montoya had nothing to do with the brutal crime. In lieu of a hearing on Mr. Montoya’s claims or a new trial, the Denver District Attorney offered to dismiss all of the charges against Mr. Montoya and release him immediately in exchange for a guilty plea to accessory after the fact. The factual basis for this plea is that Mr. Montoya rode in a car stolen from the victim and did not reveal what he heard about the murder. After 14 years behind bars, including many in solitary confinement, Mr. Montoya pled guilty and was given a time-served sentence.
Lisa Polansky (credit: CBS)
Polansky said his lawyers and the system failed him back in 2000: “He believed without a doubt in his mind that he would be freed because he was innocent.”
“Change needs to happen so this doesn’t happen again,” Montoya said.
See also:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dna-evidence-frees-man-from-prison-14-years-later/
https://denver.cbslocal.com/2014/09/22/in-a-compromise-man-freed-after-half-a-life-behind-bars/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2661337/DNA-evidence-frees-man-prison-14-years-later.html
