Colorado Attorney General John Suthers meets with Valley Courier Managing Editor Ruth Heide Thursday prior to his case presentation before the state supreme court today at Alamosa High School.

Suthers to

argue case at AHS today



By RUTH HEIDE

ALAMOSA — In Alamosa today to participate in the Courts in the Community program with the Colorado Supreme Court at the Alamosa High School, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers reviewed some of his priorities for Colorado.

On the San Luis Valley level, Suthers’ office has been involved in legal battles over water law. “We have been fighting this battle to uphold the confined aquifer rules in the Valley,” he said. “We have won at every stage so far.” He said the rules restricting new withdrawals from the basin’s confined aquifer will go a long way towards keeping water in the Valley. The confined aquifer case has won at the local and Court of Appeals level and will be argued this summer at the Colorado Supreme Court level.

“We are pretty confident of our position,” Suthers said.

Now the state is moving forward with groundwater rules that the AG’s office will likely have to uphold in court in the future.

In other areas of law, the attorney general’s office has fought mortgage, foreclosure and document fraud, successfully proposed Internet safety legislation for Colorado, assisted in reducing methamphetamine production, sale and use in the state, concluded long-standing environmental cases and opposed legislative actions that would undermine the judicial system.

In the area of mortgage and foreclosure fraud, Suthers said he was pleased with the success of public safety initiative programs. “We have been working as hard as we can against mortgage and foreclosure fraud,” he said.

Only two years ago Colorado was one of two states in the nation that did not regulate mortgage brokers at all. In one year’s time the state began requiring the registration of mortgage brokers and last year moved to full licensing. “My office was integral in helping develop those statutes,” Suthers said.

The state also put a stop to people who would convince homeowners who were about to lose their homes to quit claim them over to them and then rent them back to the homeowners at rates so high the homeowners could not pay them and would wind up losing their homes anyway. “We ran a bill a couple of years ago that put a stop to that abuse,” Suthers said. “I think we have done some good work there.”

He added that his office and the U.S. Attorney’s office have prosecuted mortgage brokers who have been using fraudulent means.

In addition, the AG’s office has cooperated with the U.S. Attorney’s office and district attorneys to reduce document fraud such as fraudulent citizenship papers used to qualify people for loans that they would not qualify for ordinarily.

The AG’s office has also concentrated efforts on Internet safety, Suthers said. “Prior to 2006 we had no specific Internet crimes in Colorado.” In 2006 Suthers’ office went to the legislature to institute three new statutes defining Internet crimes: 1) Internet luring; 2) Internet exploitation; and 3) changing possession of child pornography from misdemeanor to felony offenses. Since that time, 375 people have been arrested and cited with violating these new statutes. Suthers estimated that twice that number could be prosecuted if the state had resources to go after them.

This year the state expanded Internet crimes to include text messaging.

In another area of concern, Suthers said he has aggressively tackled the problem of methamphetamines particularly in rural Colorado where more than half of the meth use was occurring. “We are starting to see a decline,” he said. He attributes the decline in meth sales/use to making the materials harder to obtain, the Mexican government’s aggressive war on drugs and efforts of the statewide meth task force which he chairs.

In addition to fighting the sale of meth, the task force has brought dollars into the state for treatment.

“We are embarking on some prevention efforts,” Suthers added. Next week the task force will launch the Colorado Meth Project that will feature “edgy” television commercials aimed at teenagers. “It has been successful in other states and we are hoping it will be here.”

Suthers’ office has also been involved in wrapping up some long-standing environmental cases such as those revolving around contamination from the Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver and California Gulch near Leadville.

In addition, the AG’s office has continued to monitor legislation and provide input on bills that would not legally fly such as a recent attempt to take funds from Pinnacol.

“The other battles have been criminal law oriented,” Suthers said. He opposes the abolishment of the death penalty, for example. He argued that there are certain heinous crimes for which life in prison is not adequate punishment. Although Colorado seldom exercises the death penalty, those on death row in this state are people convicted of those heinous crimes, Suthers said. Some of them have committed further murders while in prison, he added.

“We review every bill,” Suthers said. His office reviews proposed legislation on the merit of basic legal issues as well as the effect on the AG’s office itself.