Weld County Sheriff Steve Reams once again fills in for Dan, discussing the mental health crisis in Colorado and how lenient state laws are allowing a predator like Solomon Galligan to soon be back out on the streets after attempting to kidnap an 11-year-old from an elementary school playground in Aurora.
Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke also joins the program.
Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke also joins the program.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Dan Capless and welcome to today's online podcast
edition of The Dan Caplis Show. Please be sure to
give us a five star rating if you'd be so kind,
and to subscribe, download and listen to the show every
single day on your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to the Dan Caplis Show here on a Wednesday,
and today you're not hearing Dan Caples yet again, but
you got well Kenny Sheriff Steve Reems filling in day
two of two. Dan will be back tomorrow. He's out
today for some trial prep, getting ready for his quest
of truth justice in the American way, as he always
likes to say. So I'll do the best at keeping
(00:35):
this thing on the rails today and trying to do
a little bit of education for those folks out there
that may not know a little bit about some aspects
of the criminal justice system that have been in the
news quite a bit here lately. But before we get
to that, since I have this platform, I want to
take a little bit of an opportunity to tell a
what I believe is kind of a heartwarming story. It's
(00:57):
personal to me because it affects my family and our
family pet. So I'm going to use this to say
thanks to a friendly person out there in the community
that I haven't got a chance to meet yet, but
only got a chance to learn the name of. So
we all have that family pet that you know, we
just come to love and it's part of our family
and it's that thing that you can never imagine going away. Well,
(01:21):
I've had some some work going on on my property
and we had some contractors out at the house yesterday
and the dogs out in the yard, and you know,
she's pretty chill. She's old at this point, I think
nine years old. Great dog. Everybody in the family loves her.
In fact, when we adopted her from the Humane Society,
the reason we adopted her, she walked up to my
then five year old son and licked him across the
(01:42):
face and he was sold. That was it. So we
brought her home and you know, all these years later,
she's just she's our lazy old dog that just hangs
out in the yard. Well, contractors are at the house
and doing a little work on an apartment that's attached
to a garage that we have, and they.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Left the gato.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
And while our dog is loyal and loves our families,
she also likes to wander around, and she managed to
wander out the gate at some point and was found
about a mile away from my house on the edge
of a county highway, or I guess a rural highway
that goes see the county. Some very nice man named
Robert Powers, I think he actually goes by. Bob Powers
(02:22):
pulled over, took the time to load the dog up
in his car, which I guess didn't take a lot
of effort. He opened the door and the dog jumped
in with Bob and his wife, and he introduced himself
to the dog, got her number off, got our number
off the collar, and called my wife and was able
to figure out how to get our dog back home.
(02:42):
And of course I get a phone call at noon
yesterday saying, you know, anytime you get a phone call
during the day from well, anytime I get a phone
call during the day from my wife, I know it's
not normal because that's just not what we do during
the day. And so I knew something was wrong. But
luckily Bob and his wife had taken our dog back
to our house, got her back in the yard, closed
(03:03):
the gate up, and made sure that she was safe.
And that's how this good story ends, So I just
want to take a little bit of time to say
thank you to Bob Powers. If he's listening, that's even
that's better. If he's not listening and you happen to
know Bob Powers, tell him thanks. And I plan on
doing the same directly because we do have his phone number.
But wanted to do that on the air because so
(03:23):
many people could have just driven by and ignored the
whole thing and not done their civic duty and helped
the dog out. She was exhausted by the time she
got home because she's old and a little tubby, kind
of like the rest of us get when we get older.
So she was definitely sleeping good last night, but she
was sleeping good in our home because of a very
(03:43):
nice and respectful person took the time to do the
right thing and help our family pet out. So you know,
good stories do happen, and I'm glad for that transitioning.
I also want to talk about a story that's been
in some of the news breaks, which I also think
is a good and I have a personal connection to.
During some of the news breaks, you've been hearing how
(04:04):
there's an ice facility that's going to be opening up
in Hudson, Colorado. It's a former private prison that had
been closed down for about the past eleven years under
the Police administration and under the Democrat control of Colorado,
the operation of private prisons became pretty much defunct for
the state. So this prison had set empty and vacant
(04:26):
without a user. Well, when Trump took over and Tom
Holman became the borders are I had a little bit
of an epiphany and I texted mister Homan and said, Hey,
nothing for nothing, but if you're looking at opening a
new facility in Colorado, I know where there might be
one available. Mister Holman was Johnny on the spot, sends
(04:47):
me a text message back. We make a few connections,
and he puts me in contact with their logistics person.
Long story short, I am very happy to be part
of the process to help get that prison back open
as an ice facility. It's not finalized yet, although that's
what the reports have been saying, but it's pretty close
to it from what I can tell. And so I
(05:07):
think that's great news for Weld County. I think that's
great news for Colorado. I think that's great news for
the rule of law in the in the state of
Colorado in our nation because illegal aliens will have a
place to go before they are shipped back to their
country and they will be safe, and so will our community.
And if you're not happy with that, well, feel free
(05:27):
to text in. You can text Dan at five seven
seven three nine and give me your feedback on whether
or not you would like to have an ice facility
in Colorado, because honestly, I think there's about to be
two additional ones, not just the one in Hudson, but
probably one down in Wallsenburg, and of course the one
that sits in Aurora already. And if you are appreciative
of the fact that there's an ice facility coming in,
(05:49):
you can text that in too, same number Dan at
five seven seven three nine, or call in the three
oh three seven one three eight two five five. So
those are the good stories that I have for today,
At least I think they're good stories. I'm pretty proud
of the fact that we're going to have a rocking
and rolling ice facility capable of holding They said twelve
to fifty on the news report. It'll hold far more
(06:10):
than that, especially if they do some soft sided tent
structures inside the walls of the Hudson Prison. I have
a feeling it could hold double that capacity, if not more.
So you know, we'll see what happens. It'd be nice
to see Colorado get on board with a story that
my under sheriff actually shared with me, and I thought,
(06:33):
you know, if Colorado was led by the right people,
what would we be capable of? And Oklahoma, you have
a governor that said, you know what, we'd like to
help facilitate this ICE process. And if we have prisoners
that are sitting in our prisons costing us on average
thirty six I think they said thirty six thousand dollars
a day for all the illegal aliens they have sitting
(06:55):
in their state prisons. If they have some low level offenders,
people who are non violent, so you know, in there
for DUI or drug charges or whatever. The state of
Oklahoma said, you know what, ICE, you can just have them.
You can come get them, take them to your facility,
and ship them out of the country, send them home,
send them back to wherever they were, because that punishment
is probably far more than sitting in some place getting
(07:17):
three hots in a cot on the Oklahoma state dime.
I don't know how many illegal aliens are sitting in
the Department of Corrections, but I have a feeling that
there are a few. And if it costs thirty six
thousand dollars a day for Oklahoma at the house, I
think they said they had around five hundred inmates that
fit the criteria, we're bound to have more than that.
(07:39):
You know, there's some budget savings while the state of
Colorado is looking at trying to cut eight hundred million
dollars out of the state budget. So there's an idea.
I'm sure. I'm sure Jared Polis is listening to this
radio program for all the great ideas we can insert
into his brain, and you know, maybe he'll take that
up and decide that he can help populate that Hudson
(08:00):
prison that's going to become an ice facility, hopefully by
the end of the year. So again, all good news,
and I think it's all good for the people of
Colorado who believe in the rule of law. And that's
kind of what we're going to talk about a little
bit here today. You know, yesterday we were talking about
how the budget is out of whack, and you know,
forty four billion dollars isn't enough to run the state
(08:20):
now they got to figure out how to cut two
billion more because they're spending money on ridiculous stuff. We
had Senator Barb Kirkmeyer and Representative Tie went around yesterday
explaining where some of those ridiculous expenses go to. But no,
instead we have a state legislature that's going to say, well,
let's just figure out how to raise taxes or override tabor.
(08:42):
But I want to highlight one of the big impacts
that's that's hitting this state, and it's it's our broken
mental health system. So when we talk about, you know,
healthcare costs, one of those costs entrenched in all that
is the overwhelming cost of trying to treat people with
drug addiction and mental health mental health concerns, and right now,
(09:04):
the the fact a way of that occurring is through
county jails and state prisons, which isn't a good solution,
but it's the only solution that Colorado really has to
offer right now. And I see it each and every day,
and that's even more manifested when you see a case
like Solomon Gallaghan out of a Rapao County, the transgender
or sex offender that tried to kidnap a fourth grader
(09:25):
off of a playground back in April. That's got people
nervous and for righteous reasons. Some of you will remember
maybe a month ago when we had Michael Rourcan as
a guest. He's going to come back on at four
thirty six and talk with us about a thing he
warned us before the Solomon Gallagan case even got traction,
So we'll head to break. When we come back, I'll
(09:46):
highlight that Solomon Gallagan case one more time, kind of
talk about the details of that case so that we
can break down what mental competency or incompetency looks like
in the state of Colorado and how that's going to
continue to impact your safety in this state until he
gets fixed. You listen to the Dan Caplas Show here
with Well Kenny Sheriff Steve Riams as your guest host
(10:07):
on six point thirty.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
KL and now back to the Dan Kaplas Show podcast.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Aurora, Colorado, known for the trend of Aragua problem, now
has another big issue, a spiraling mental health crisis fueling
psychotic behavior. And there's even a George Soros angle here.
A registered sex offender could have his charges dropped after
a Soros backed prosecutor is considering leaving the charges behind
(10:35):
because he was found The suspect found to be mentally
incompetent to stand trial. Solomon Gallagan, who identifies as a woman,
was accused of trying to kidnap a boy last year
and was charged with one count of attempted kidnapping. Police
say surveillance video shows him approaching students playing at recess
this is a horrifying scene before trying to grab that
(10:57):
eleven year old boy. But now a spokes first and
for the DA tells us that they have not yet
dropped the charges, but they intend to do so, and
the suspect will not be released out to the public,
but will instead be civilly committed for mental health treatment,
meaning he could be released at some point in the future.
But he's also been released from jail before. A local
(11:18):
outlet reveals that prosecutors have dropped felony charges against him
at least four times since twenty eighteen. The suspect's sisters
as a brother has been in and out of jail
for twelve years, diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but
was never institutionalized because of a shortage of beds in
mental health centers, but the county da Amy Padden is
(11:39):
set to dismiss those charges as required by law if
someone's found mentally incompetent to stand trial, and now furious
residents want her recalled.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Don't you love how Colorado just keeps making national news
for such glorious things like you know, nutballs getting out
of out of jail or prison and going out reoffending
over and over and over again. This Solomon Gallaghan story
has grown legs because it's terrifying to the average citizen
out there who has kids, has a family, or you know,
(12:11):
even as just you know, you're you're a young person
straight out of college and you know you're out running
or whatever, and you're afraid that you're going to encounter
one of these people. I mean, yeah, it's it's a
it's really remarkable at the terrible state that our mental
health system is in in the state of Colorado, where
someone like this Solomon Gallagan has so many opportunities to reoffend,
(12:34):
and no punishment can be dealt to this person other
than potentially being locked up for a short amount of
time in a mental health facility. And you know, again
you have to wonder if when he she, whatever it's
identifying as now gets a chance to be restored to
some level of competency is released to the public. Is
(12:55):
this person going to stay on any kind of mental
health drugs that will keep keep them halfway normal? Obviously not.
I mean, there's this repetitive concern that keeps happening, and
it's not just limited to a Rapaho County. I hate
to say this, but this is a problem that is
spread across the United States, but definitely across the state
(13:17):
of Colorado, and we deal with it even in Weld County.
I'm gonna I'm gonna have Weld County District Michael, District
Attorney Michael Rourke on after the break, the upcoming break,
and we're also going to have Captain matt Elbie with
a welld County jail in the second hour of the
show to talk about competency restoration. And again, you know,
(13:40):
we had Michael Rourke on earlier and I guess maybe
a month month and a half ago, he spoke about
this very issue and some of the concerns that he's
seeing where the public defender has like an instant, an
instant way of saying, hey, these people don't need to
stand trial. They've already been proven incompetent once. So it's
like a get out of jail free card over and
over and over again. And if we don't close this loophole,
(14:03):
issues like Solomon Gallagan or going to be you know,
there's just going to be a distant memory, because it's
going to be the one that started this, this thing
where we started paying attention, but we're not doing anything
to fix it. You know, I hope in this upcoming
legislative session that some legislators both sides of the aisle
are going to sit down and listen to the district
(14:24):
attorneys and say we made a fatal error.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
One.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
We passed a few laws in the last few legislative
sessions that said, here are the things you have to do,
uh to deal with people who get an incompetency label
put on them. We're gonna have to find a better
solution because this just isn't one. But before we go
to break, let's let's cover a few of these texts.
You guys are lighting it up again. This one here
(14:48):
says Dan always says the loonies are because of the
pot in this state. Well, you know he's not necessarily wrong.
I don't know if you can blame him, blame it
all on pot usage, but there's plenty of drug use,
and pot kind of opened the door. Legalized marijuana kind
of opened the door to everything else flooding into the state. Fentanyl, meth, heroin, cocaine,
(15:09):
you name it. It's in a higher quantity now than it
has ever been in my time in law enforcement, almost
twenty eight years. And marijuana is I mean, it's just
so common in our contacts now that it's just not
even surprising anymore. Here's another text, share frames. I live
(15:30):
in Well County. It doesn't surprise me that someone in
this fine county made the effort to get your dog
back to you. You had me going on whether the
story is going to have a happy ending. I was
a little nervous too. Thank you for doing and then
also thank you for doing something to get another prison
resource that furthers the goal of the Trump administration. Proud
to have you as our sheriff. You're a leader and
a doer. Hey. Thanks, I appreciate that. Another one I
(15:53):
do like my illegal immigrants on ICE, thumbs up for
the new ICE facilities. Thanks Patty, A pretty loyal listener
there and well, you know, there's a there's a lot
of support for ICE here on the tech screen. The
more detention centers you can open up, the busier Jason
Crow will be. He's gonna have to figure out where
Weld County is. Maybe he can find it on a map,
(16:14):
maybe maybe his his his navigation will take him there.
But I can tell you he's not going to get
a very warm reception if he goes driving around Weld
County because his politics is not that well loved in
the town of Hudson where that facility is going to
be located or is located. Another one. What a great story,
and what a great guy to save my dog. Good
(16:37):
time to say thank you for him. Thank you to
that person on the air. It's at least I could do.
And I'm so glad that mister Robert Powers, Bob Powers
was in the area and did the right thing. Here's
another one. Great to have another ICE facility that's from Alexa.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
And then this one.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
I don't know where it really came from, but can
you imagine if Russia still owned Alaska? You know, I
saw the funniest thing. I was talking about how how
Trump was going to stop the war between Ukraine and Russia,
and it was he was gonna seed California to Russia
as a land grab and say there you go, now
we're all fair and square. I don't necessarily know that
(17:17):
I want to see California go to Russia. But if
you're going to give up a state, that's the one,
not Alaska, keep it.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
So.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Uh, it's going to be interesting to see what Friday
brings on that note, with with President Trump meeting with
President Putin to try to figure out how to stop
the war in Ukraine. I have a ton of faith
in President Trump to strike a strike a deal, but
I'm not sure if that one's one that can get done.
Call me crazy, but I think Putin. Putin's got some
(17:44):
some screws loose at this point. I think he's willing
to go down in flames, and it appears that that's
exactly what he's doing. All that being said, you know,
we've got we've got a lot to focus on here
in our state. If Trump can help in any way,
you know, with ice and and cracking down on illegal
immigration and getting rid of criminal aliens from this state,
(18:04):
that just helps make our state better. And if our governor.
Governor Polus would decide to lean in like the governor
of Oklahoma and say, hey, we're going to help imagine
how much more successful it could be. When we go
to break, are we're going to break? We come back,
We'll have Well County District Attorney Michael Rourke on the
phone with us. He's going to talk to us about
these competency issues and just how bad the problem has
(18:27):
really become in this state. If you're listening to the
Dan Caples Show here with Well Kunty Sheriff Steve Reams
as your guest.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Host, you're listening to the Dan Kapliss Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Welcome back to the Dan Capla Show here with Well
County Sheriff Steve Riams as you fill in guest host.
And when we went to break, we were talking a
little bit about how the state of Colorado is somewhat
out of control when it comes to the criminal justice
system and this new new found I guess we'll say
example of being able to use incompetency for suspects in
(19:07):
order to abscond from being being held accountable for their crimes,
and not just Weld County but across the state. But
a good person to message this issue is none other
than the Weld County District Attorney, Michael Rourke for the
fighting nineteenth. Michael, thanks for being on the phone with us.
Speaker 5 (19:27):
Thanks for having me again.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
You know, you kind of spoke to the listeners about
this very issue, and I'd ask you to come on
to talk about something else, but you you actually brought
this up and said you wanted to educate the listeners
about the concern that you were seeing not just in
Weld County, but you know, obviously hearing it across the
state with these incompetency hearings, and how it was being
weaponized by the public defenders and others to basically get
(19:52):
their clients out of any kind of accountability for their actions.
And we saw this with Solomon Gallaghan. But you've been
seeing for a while. Give us your take on this.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
Sure, Absolutely, this is a problem that the legislature has
created for us, and really at this point there's no solution.
The problem looks like this, and this is something that
you and I obviously have talked about on a number
of occasions. But we have an inmate currently in the
Well County jail who I won't name, who has had
previous violent cases, dangerous violent cases dismissed by other jurisdictions,
(20:26):
other courts because the defendant has been found to be
incompetent to stand trial and not likely to be able
to be restored to competency within the foreseeable future. And
that's the important piece, is not able to be restored
in the foreseeable future. When that happens, a court under
our current legislation has no choice but to dismiss the
(20:48):
criminal case against that particular defendant, even if efforts at
restoration of competency for that individual have not been tried.
Is a judge, based on other collateral information that he
or she may have, thinks that perhaps, contrary to the
opinion that's received from an evaluator, thinks that perhaps restoration
(21:13):
might be of benefit. They have no choice, And we
are faced with a situation like that, what right now?
Like you and I both know when they're made in
your jail, who was very dangerous and who was on
the verge of having their cases dismissed because they are
being found incompetent and not restorable even though no efforts
have been tried at restoration.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
So you put a little bit of a timeframe on
this on this idea of being able to restore someone's
competency within the foreseeable future, what does that mean?
Speaker 5 (21:44):
Right, Well, that's a good question because it has never
been defined. It actually that language comes from a nineteen
seventy two United States Supreme Court being of course it does,
and there's never been a good effort at defining exactly
what exactly what constitutes a reasonable time frame. It's really
left to the discretion of the evaluator to come to
that conclusion after meeting with a defendant for an hour
(22:08):
or two, and if the professional opinion is not restorable
within the reasonable likelihood or within the reasonable force eable future,
then they render that opinion that they're not restorable. And
so there's no statutory guideline, there's no case law guideline.
It's really left to the discretion of each individual evaluator
(22:28):
mental health or incompetency of guilt.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
And these evaluators, these are people that you get to
pick correct.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
That's correct. They're either hired by the state or on occasion,
if a defendant has means, they can go out and
they can hire their own evaluator to come to these
conclusions and then The more difficult problem is for my
prosecutors in the courtroom, who are faced with this opinion
from an evaluator. And there is a presumption in the
statute that a defendant is not or will not be
(22:57):
restorable to competency, and so we have to over come
that presumption that someone is not restorable in addition to
having this opinion from an evaluator.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Okay, so all right, now I'm really now, I'm really
ticked off. So dude gets arrested, he or she gets arrested.
They come in and they're an abject mass. Okay, fine,
they and to use a very close example to the
one we're talking about, in my facility, they beat the
tar out of somebody. They come into the facility, they
(23:28):
claim incompetency. The public Defender's office or whomever is representing
them says, yep, we've got this evaluator, evaluator that says
this person's mentally incompetent. You have to challenge that. But
you don't get a chance to go find your own
person to challenge that competency. Correct, Like you you don't
get a you don't get your own doc to go
look at this person.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
Is that is that the way I'm hearing it, I
can at at state expense as a second opinion. But
again back to the issue. We're faced with evaluators who
don't want to put their professional reputation on the line
to come out and affirmative, affirmatively say yes, this person
may be restorable. And so what we're faced with is
a systemic prejudice, if you will, against the notion of
(24:12):
an individual being restorable in order to face criminal charges
and the potential of lengthy prison sentences in many of
our violent enemies. And so we have this presumption systemically,
we have the presumption in the case law that says
that that we are going to presume that a defendant
is not restorable, and we often have times have to
overcome that with a very high burden of proof in
(24:32):
a courtroom. We're simply not able to do.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah, I don't know how you could. I mean, and
you're still using the same pool of evaluators that are
approved by the.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
Stake correct exactly, exactly, yes, So it's not like.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
You can go out and say, hey, we got this
hired gun that will that will you know, give us
the real deal. And I hate to use it that way,
but you know, when you have a you know, a
professional witness on either side, that's typically someone who's more
favorable to one side or the other. You're not getting
you don't even have that opportunity.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Not in the vast majority of cases. You're exactly right.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Wow, And so you get this little bit of a
back and forth. You can't get to the point where
where criminal charges can be filed. What is the other
option you have available to you? So case has to
be dismissed? This person's not safe to go back. I mean,
obviously they're not competent to stand trial. They're probably not
competent to function in society. What other option do you
have available to you?
Speaker 5 (25:24):
You thought you were mad before. So here's the other
option we have available to us. It's called civil commitment.
And there's a statute. There's a series of statutes in
civil law that allow for a civil commitment of a
descendant who is deemed to be dangerous to themselves or others,
or gravely disabled. But there is a loophole, there's a
massive gap in the defendants we're talking about, because what
(25:47):
we have is a defendant who's found to be incompetent
and not restorable but oftentimes won't meet that definition that
exists in the civil realm of either gravely disabled or
a dangerous themselves or others because of the statuary definitions.
And so there's a massive gap in there in a
number of defendants who have to have their cases dismissed
(26:08):
aren't eligible for civil commitment into a facility in order
to try to receive some type of benefit. So they're
simply being released back into our communities.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
So all right, And maybe you're not in the position
to necessarily speak to this, but these folks that are
being found incompetent. Is this a is this a drug
induced issue oftentimes, or is this a true mental health
issue combination of both, or is it just kind of
run the gamut?
Speaker 5 (26:35):
Yeah, I think it runs the gamut. I think we
have seen a number of individuals who truly are mentally
ill suffer from some type of mental disease or defect
that renders them dangerousness to the dangerous to the community.
Oftentimes it's drug induced or or has a drug induced
component to it. But you're right, it runs the spectrum
between those ends of the spectrum, if you will.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
All right, So another factor here that I think people
don't understand when a person is is waiting for that
competency hearing. Let's say they are restored to some level
of competency, they go down to the state hospital, you know,
they get on some medication. Yeah, this person's good to
stand trial, and then they get shipped back to my jail.
Because of the backlog and the criminal justice system. How
(27:18):
often are you seeing where that person gets shipped back
to the county jail. They've been told that they're competent,
but because of how long it takes to get to trial,
or because of stall tactics from the public defender. How
many times do you see that same defendant decompensate again
and now it's time for trial or it's time for hearing,
and hey, this person's not normal again, are you? Is
that pretty common?
Speaker 5 (27:40):
Absolutely? And it is because oftentimes, without a specific court
order that we can talk about in a second, oftentimes,
when a defendant comes back to your jail, if they
are not voluntarily taking the medication that has been prescribed
to them by the state hospital doctors, and there's not
an order for force medication, which is very difficult to get,
don't have to come to your jail and necessarily take
(28:02):
the medications that will keep them competent in order to
stand trial, and so then they get that incompetency threshold again,
and we're back to the same score that we were
six months ago, a year ago, however long that may be.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I know this is an easy question, but is a
is this an issue that can be addressed through legislative changes?
Speaker 5 (28:22):
In your mind? I think it can, and I'm cautiously optimistic.
I know that there is an effort by a very
small working group that has just started looking at some
potential resolutions because of the gaps and the loopholes that
I talked about. I'm aware that they just had a
meeting this week. There's a couple of state legislators I'm
on that working group, as well as a representative of
(28:45):
the prose prosecution community, some other subject matter experts, and
in looking at what some other states have done incorporating
a similar standard on the criminal side versus the civil
commitment side, I think there is an effort or an
opportunity for us to get some progress so that we
don't simply open the doors to your jail and let
a dangerous person out in the community with at at
(29:07):
least some effort at restoration. I'm cautiously optimistic that we
can we can get that loophole closed this legislative session.
But it's going to take a lot of work on
a lot of different individual.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Parts, and it's going to take the Democrats actually agreeing
that this is a problem, and I'm not sure that
they're yet there yet, even with the Solomon Gallaghan style case,
I'm not sure that they're there yet. I hope you're right.
I'll be cautiously optimistic alongside you guys, with the colorad
of District Attorney's Council and whomever you're working with. But
right man, I'm going to hope, hope for the best.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
One. That is one I'm sorry to interrupt you share
that is one of our top priorities as an entity.
We just met yesterday to talk about our top legislative priorities,
and this is in our top three certainly going forward
this coming legislative session.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Well, Michael, we appreciate you being on District Attorney Michael Rourke.
You're always a point of wisdom on these issues, and again,
thank you for bringing this up all those weeks ago
when you were on here with me. Before you know,
I can't encourage listeners enough pay attention to what's going
on out there. And if you would, Michael, if there's
another one of these cases that we can highlight, please
(30:13):
let me know, because whether I'm hosting the show or
Dan hosting the show, this is an important thing for
the listeners to hear.
Speaker 5 (30:20):
Be happy to Sheriff, thanks for the partnership that we
had with your agency.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
You bet that's District Attorney Michael Rourke out of the
nineteenth just this judicial district. Heck of a guy. He's
been great on prosecutions. With that, we'll go to break.
When we come back, we'll catch a couple of calls
and catch up on these texts. You're listening to Dan
capless Show here with Well Kenny Sheriff Steve Rams, and.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Now back to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Welcome back to the Dan Caplish Show here with Well
Kenny Sheriff Steve Riams. We just got done talking with
District Attorney Michael Rourke about competency hearings and the infuriating
mess that the state has created around that issue. But
that's stirred a bunch of questions through text and a
phone call from Frank in Denver, Frank, I know you've
been holding for a little bit. What's your burning question there?
(31:04):
And says here you have a comment about mental instability.
Speaker 6 (31:08):
Yeah, well, first of all, thanks for bringing Da rourk Omer.
He certainly seems like a good person a hand a
lot of these things. But as I listened to you
talk and thank you for bringing this issue to illustrate
how complex and tough and potentially unsolvable some of these
mental conditions are. The medicine field doesn't have an absolute answer,
(31:32):
and I think when you're facing an opponent like the Democrats,
who are abound to determine to push the limits of
the legal system to try to oppose anything common sense
that you guys try to do to get these people
out the streets. You often. I didn't realize it was
so hard to get a mandatory medication order for some
(31:55):
of these mental disorders that are amenable to injections, you know,
monthly or something to control them. It's just a very
difficult problem. And I don't see us in America making
much progress until the Democrats basically change some of their
mos as far as is being willing to compromise and
(32:20):
work with the right. It's a very difficult situation, and
unfortunately it's manifested by Colorado's current position. So I would
implore a lot of intermediate independent voters to think long
and hard when they go to the voting booth, to
try to think about putting at least one of our
(32:41):
houses may to send it back into the right wing hand,
so that these people will be forced to come to
a better conclusion.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
I couldn't agree with you more, frank And you know,
I sell the time and you hear from others that
elections have consequences, and quite frankly, we've we're feeling the
consequences of our of our latest elections, if you will,
And I can't. While I cannot support anything that happened
around that Solomon Gallagan case, I mean, it's terrifying that
(33:10):
this person could end up back out on the street.
I'll also say that there's probably not a better case
to highlight just how broken the system is. So if
if nothing else comes from that, you know, maybe the
Democrats go, oh man, we need to we need to
step back into this. But Republicans aren't. They're you know,
they're just a little bit of the cause on this too.
I mean, there was a there was an an effort
(33:31):
to pass this bill and the bill that's associated with
his House Bill twenty four one zero three four. So
it just went through in one of the past legislative cycles.
And there were some there were some Republicans that voted
in support of this bill that they created a new
body of law that requires these releases, you know, without
really fully thinking it through. But Frank, your your comments
(33:53):
are on point as always, and thank you for calling in.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
So you know Frank's he's got a great point. I mean,
we had We've got a mess to fix here, and
it's it's not easy. It's going to take both sides
of the aisle. And this is what happens when you
have one party control and the only thing they care
about is, you know, pushing their own social agenda. Right now,
the Republicans have one party control out in DC, and
and I think they're using it wisely.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Is there an opportunity for things to go wrong? Of
course there is, but you know the opportunity for things
to go wrong in Colorado or we're way past the opportunity.
Speaker 5 (34:28):
We're there.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
So some of then are some of the texts here
someone says, what is an effing evaluator. It's a psychologist,
a psychiatrist who's approved by the state to make these, uh,
these determinations. Yeah, it's a it's a it's a tough thing.
But when we come back, we'll cover this a little
bit more. But we're going to dive in with Congressman
Gabe Evans right away to talk about what's going on
(34:52):
out in Washington, d C. With President Trump's recent efforts.
You're listening to the Dan Caflis Show here with Well
Kenny Sheriff, Steve
This is Dan Capless and welcome to today's online podcast
edition of The Dan Caplis Show. Please be sure to
give us a five star rating if you'd be so kind,
and to subscribe, download and listen to the show every
single day on your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to the Dan Caplis Show here on a Wednesday,
and today you're not hearing Dan Caples yet again, but
you got well Kenny Sheriff Steve Reems filling in day
two of two. Dan will be back tomorrow. He's out
today for some trial prep, getting ready for his quest
of truth justice in the American way, as he always
likes to say. So I'll do the best at keeping
(00:35):
this thing on the rails today and trying to do
a little bit of education for those folks out there
that may not know a little bit about some aspects
of the criminal justice system that have been in the
news quite a bit here lately. But before we get
to that, since I have this platform, I want to
take a little bit of an opportunity to tell a
what I believe is kind of a heartwarming story. It's
(00:57):
personal to me because it affects my family and our
family pet. So I'm going to use this to say
thanks to a friendly person out there in the community
that I haven't got a chance to meet yet, but
only got a chance to learn the name of. So
we all have that family pet that you know, we
just come to love and it's part of our family
and it's that thing that you can never imagine going away. Well,
(01:21):
I've had some some work going on on my property
and we had some contractors out at the house yesterday
and the dogs out in the yard, and you know,
she's pretty chill. She's old at this point, I think
nine years old. Great dog. Everybody in the family loves her.
In fact, when we adopted her from the Humane Society,
the reason we adopted her, she walked up to my
then five year old son and licked him across the
(01:42):
face and he was sold. That was it. So we
brought her home and you know, all these years later,
she's just she's our lazy old dog that just hangs
out in the yard. Well, contractors are at the house
and doing a little work on an apartment that's attached
to a garage that we have, and they.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Left the gato.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
And while our dog is loyal and loves our families,
she also likes to wander around, and she managed to
wander out the gate at some point and was found
about a mile away from my house on the edge
of a county highway, or I guess a rural highway
that goes see the county. Some very nice man named
Robert Powers, I think he actually goes by. Bob Powers
(02:22):
pulled over, took the time to load the dog up
in his car, which I guess didn't take a lot
of effort. He opened the door and the dog jumped
in with Bob and his wife, and he introduced himself
to the dog, got her number off, got our number
off the collar, and called my wife and was able
to figure out how to get our dog back home.
(02:42):
And of course I get a phone call at noon
yesterday saying, you know, anytime you get a phone call
during the day from well, anytime I get a phone
call during the day from my wife, I know it's
not normal because that's just not what we do during
the day. And so I knew something was wrong. But
luckily Bob and his wife had taken our dog back
to our house, got her back in the yard, closed
(03:03):
the gate up, and made sure that she was safe.
And that's how this good story ends, So I just
want to take a little bit of time to say
thank you to Bob Powers. If he's listening, that's even
that's better. If he's not listening and you happen to
know Bob Powers, tell him thanks. And I plan on
doing the same directly because we do have his phone number.
But wanted to do that on the air because so
(03:23):
many people could have just driven by and ignored the
whole thing and not done their civic duty and helped
the dog out. She was exhausted by the time she
got home because she's old and a little tubby, kind
of like the rest of us get when we get older.
So she was definitely sleeping good last night, but she
was sleeping good in our home because of a very
(03:43):
nice and respectful person took the time to do the
right thing and help our family pet out. So you know,
good stories do happen, and I'm glad for that transitioning.
I also want to talk about a story that's been
in some of the news breaks, which I also think
is a good and I have a personal connection to.
During some of the news breaks, you've been hearing how
(04:04):
there's an ice facility that's going to be opening up
in Hudson, Colorado. It's a former private prison that had
been closed down for about the past eleven years under
the Police administration and under the Democrat control of Colorado,
the operation of private prisons became pretty much defunct for
the state. So this prison had set empty and vacant
(04:26):
without a user. Well, when Trump took over and Tom
Holman became the borders are I had a little bit
of an epiphany and I texted mister Homan and said, Hey,
nothing for nothing, but if you're looking at opening a
new facility in Colorado, I know where there might be
one available. Mister Holman was Johnny on the spot, sends
(04:47):
me a text message back. We make a few connections,
and he puts me in contact with their logistics person.
Long story short, I am very happy to be part
of the process to help get that prison back open
as an ice facility. It's not finalized yet, although that's
what the reports have been saying, but it's pretty close
to it from what I can tell. And so I
(05:07):
think that's great news for Weld County. I think that's
great news for Colorado. I think that's great news for
the rule of law in the in the state of
Colorado in our nation because illegal aliens will have a
place to go before they are shipped back to their
country and they will be safe, and so will our community.
And if you're not happy with that, well, feel free
(05:27):
to text in. You can text Dan at five seven
seven three nine and give me your feedback on whether
or not you would like to have an ice facility
in Colorado, because honestly, I think there's about to be
two additional ones, not just the one in Hudson, but
probably one down in Wallsenburg, and of course the one
that sits in Aurora already. And if you are appreciative
of the fact that there's an ice facility coming in,
(05:49):
you can text that in too, same number Dan at
five seven seven three nine, or call in the three
oh three seven one three eight two five five. So
those are the good stories that I have for today,
At least I think they're good stories. I'm pretty proud
of the fact that we're going to have a rocking
and rolling ice facility capable of holding They said twelve
to fifty on the news report. It'll hold far more
(06:10):
than that, especially if they do some soft sided tent
structures inside the walls of the Hudson Prison. I have
a feeling it could hold double that capacity, if not more.
So you know, we'll see what happens. It'd be nice
to see Colorado get on board with a story that
my under sheriff actually shared with me, and I thought,
(06:33):
you know, if Colorado was led by the right people,
what would we be capable of? And Oklahoma, you have
a governor that said, you know what, we'd like to
help facilitate this ICE process. And if we have prisoners
that are sitting in our prisons costing us on average
thirty six I think they said thirty six thousand dollars
a day for all the illegal aliens they have sitting
(06:55):
in their state prisons. If they have some low level offenders,
people who are non violent, so you know, in there
for DUI or drug charges or whatever. The state of
Oklahoma said, you know what, ICE, you can just have them.
You can come get them, take them to your facility,
and ship them out of the country, send them home,
send them back to wherever they were, because that punishment
is probably far more than sitting in some place getting
(07:17):
three hots in a cot on the Oklahoma state dime.
I don't know how many illegal aliens are sitting in
the Department of Corrections, but I have a feeling that
there are a few. And if it costs thirty six
thousand dollars a day for Oklahoma at the house, I
think they said they had around five hundred inmates that
fit the criteria, we're bound to have more than that.
(07:39):
You know, there's some budget savings while the state of
Colorado is looking at trying to cut eight hundred million
dollars out of the state budget. So there's an idea.
I'm sure. I'm sure Jared Polis is listening to this
radio program for all the great ideas we can insert
into his brain, and you know, maybe he'll take that
up and decide that he can help populate that Hudson
(08:00):
prison that's going to become an ice facility, hopefully by
the end of the year. So again, all good news,
and I think it's all good for the people of
Colorado who believe in the rule of law. And that's
kind of what we're going to talk about a little
bit here today. You know, yesterday we were talking about
how the budget is out of whack, and you know,
forty four billion dollars isn't enough to run the state
(08:20):
now they got to figure out how to cut two
billion more because they're spending money on ridiculous stuff. We
had Senator Barb Kirkmeyer and Representative Tie went around yesterday
explaining where some of those ridiculous expenses go to. But no,
instead we have a state legislature that's going to say, well,
let's just figure out how to raise taxes or override tabor.
(08:42):
But I want to highlight one of the big impacts
that's that's hitting this state, and it's it's our broken
mental health system. So when we talk about, you know,
healthcare costs, one of those costs entrenched in all that
is the overwhelming cost of trying to treat people with
drug addiction and mental health mental health concerns, and right now,
(09:04):
the the fact a way of that occurring is through
county jails and state prisons, which isn't a good solution,
but it's the only solution that Colorado really has to
offer right now. And I see it each and every day,
and that's even more manifested when you see a case
like Solomon Gallaghan out of a Rapao County, the transgender
or sex offender that tried to kidnap a fourth grader
(09:25):
off of a playground back in April. That's got people
nervous and for righteous reasons. Some of you will remember
maybe a month ago when we had Michael Rourcan as
a guest. He's going to come back on at four
thirty six and talk with us about a thing he
warned us before the Solomon Gallagan case even got traction,
So we'll head to break. When we come back, I'll
(09:46):
highlight that Solomon Gallagan case one more time, kind of
talk about the details of that case so that we
can break down what mental competency or incompetency looks like
in the state of Colorado and how that's going to
continue to impact your safety in this state until he
gets fixed. You listen to the Dan Caplas Show here
with Well Kenny Sheriff Steve Riams as your guest host
(10:07):
on six point thirty.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
KL and now back to the Dan Kaplas Show podcast.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Aurora, Colorado, known for the trend of Aragua problem, now
has another big issue, a spiraling mental health crisis fueling
psychotic behavior. And there's even a George Soros angle here.
A registered sex offender could have his charges dropped after
a Soros backed prosecutor is considering leaving the charges behind
(10:35):
because he was found The suspect found to be mentally
incompetent to stand trial. Solomon Gallagan, who identifies as a woman,
was accused of trying to kidnap a boy last year
and was charged with one count of attempted kidnapping. Police
say surveillance video shows him approaching students playing at recess
this is a horrifying scene before trying to grab that
(10:57):
eleven year old boy. But now a spokes first and
for the DA tells us that they have not yet
dropped the charges, but they intend to do so, and
the suspect will not be released out to the public,
but will instead be civilly committed for mental health treatment,
meaning he could be released at some point in the future.
But he's also been released from jail before. A local
(11:18):
outlet reveals that prosecutors have dropped felony charges against him
at least four times since twenty eighteen. The suspect's sisters
as a brother has been in and out of jail
for twelve years, diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but
was never institutionalized because of a shortage of beds in
mental health centers, but the county da Amy Padden is
(11:39):
set to dismiss those charges as required by law if
someone's found mentally incompetent to stand trial, and now furious
residents want her recalled.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Don't you love how Colorado just keeps making national news
for such glorious things like you know, nutballs getting out
of out of jail or prison and going out reoffending
over and over and over again. This Solomon Gallaghan story
has grown legs because it's terrifying to the average citizen
out there who has kids, has a family, or you know,
(12:11):
even as just you know, you're you're a young person
straight out of college and you know you're out running
or whatever, and you're afraid that you're going to encounter
one of these people. I mean, yeah, it's it's a
it's really remarkable at the terrible state that our mental
health system is in in the state of Colorado, where
someone like this Solomon Gallagan has so many opportunities to reoffend,
(12:34):
and no punishment can be dealt to this person other
than potentially being locked up for a short amount of
time in a mental health facility. And you know, again
you have to wonder if when he she, whatever it's
identifying as now gets a chance to be restored to
some level of competency is released to the public. Is
(12:55):
this person going to stay on any kind of mental
health drugs that will keep keep them halfway normal? Obviously not.
I mean, there's this repetitive concern that keeps happening, and
it's not just limited to a Rapaho County. I hate
to say this, but this is a problem that is
spread across the United States, but definitely across the state
(13:17):
of Colorado, and we deal with it even in Weld County.
I'm gonna I'm gonna have Weld County District Michael, District
Attorney Michael Rourke on after the break, the upcoming break,
and we're also going to have Captain matt Elbie with
a welld County jail in the second hour of the
show to talk about competency restoration. And again, you know,
(13:40):
we had Michael Rourke on earlier and I guess maybe
a month month and a half ago, he spoke about
this very issue and some of the concerns that he's
seeing where the public defender has like an instant, an
instant way of saying, hey, these people don't need to
stand trial. They've already been proven incompetent once. So it's
like a get out of jail free card over and
over and over again. And if we don't close this loophole,
(14:03):
issues like Solomon Gallagan or going to be you know,
there's just going to be a distant memory, because it's
going to be the one that started this, this thing
where we started paying attention, but we're not doing anything
to fix it. You know, I hope in this upcoming
legislative session that some legislators both sides of the aisle
are going to sit down and listen to the district
(14:24):
attorneys and say we made a fatal error.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
One.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
We passed a few laws in the last few legislative
sessions that said, here are the things you have to do,
uh to deal with people who get an incompetency label
put on them. We're gonna have to find a better
solution because this just isn't one. But before we go
to break, let's let's cover a few of these texts.
You guys are lighting it up again. This one here
(14:48):
says Dan always says the loonies are because of the
pot in this state. Well, you know he's not necessarily wrong.
I don't know if you can blame him, blame it
all on pot usage, but there's plenty of drug use,
and pot kind of opened the door. Legalized marijuana kind
of opened the door to everything else flooding into the state. Fentanyl, meth, heroin, cocaine,
(15:09):
you name it. It's in a higher quantity now than it
has ever been in my time in law enforcement, almost
twenty eight years. And marijuana is I mean, it's just
so common in our contacts now that it's just not
even surprising anymore. Here's another text, share frames. I live
(15:30):
in Well County. It doesn't surprise me that someone in
this fine county made the effort to get your dog
back to you. You had me going on whether the
story is going to have a happy ending. I was
a little nervous too. Thank you for doing and then
also thank you for doing something to get another prison
resource that furthers the goal of the Trump administration. Proud
to have you as our sheriff. You're a leader and
a doer. Hey. Thanks, I appreciate that. Another one I
(15:53):
do like my illegal immigrants on ICE, thumbs up for
the new ICE facilities. Thanks Patty, A pretty loyal listener
there and well, you know, there's a there's a lot
of support for ICE here on the tech screen. The
more detention centers you can open up, the busier Jason
Crow will be. He's gonna have to figure out where
Weld County is. Maybe he can find it on a map,
(16:14):
maybe maybe his his his navigation will take him there.
But I can tell you he's not going to get
a very warm reception if he goes driving around Weld
County because his politics is not that well loved in
the town of Hudson where that facility is going to
be located or is located. Another one. What a great story,
and what a great guy to save my dog. Good
(16:37):
time to say thank you for him. Thank you to
that person on the air. It's at least I could do.
And I'm so glad that mister Robert Powers, Bob Powers
was in the area and did the right thing. Here's
another one. Great to have another ICE facility that's from Alexa.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
And then this one.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
I don't know where it really came from, but can
you imagine if Russia still owned Alaska? You know, I
saw the funniest thing. I was talking about how how
Trump was going to stop the war between Ukraine and Russia,
and it was he was gonna seed California to Russia
as a land grab and say there you go, now
we're all fair and square. I don't necessarily know that
(17:17):
I want to see California go to Russia. But if
you're going to give up a state, that's the one,
not Alaska, keep it.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
So.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Uh, it's going to be interesting to see what Friday
brings on that note, with with President Trump meeting with
President Putin to try to figure out how to stop
the war in Ukraine. I have a ton of faith
in President Trump to strike a strike a deal, but
I'm not sure if that one's one that can get done.
Call me crazy, but I think Putin. Putin's got some
(17:44):
some screws loose at this point. I think he's willing
to go down in flames, and it appears that that's
exactly what he's doing. All that being said, you know,
we've got we've got a lot to focus on here
in our state. If Trump can help in any way,
you know, with ice and and cracking down on illegal
immigration and getting rid of criminal aliens from this state,
(18:04):
that just helps make our state better. And if our governor.
Governor Polus would decide to lean in like the governor
of Oklahoma and say, hey, we're going to help imagine
how much more successful it could be. When we go
to break, are we're going to break? We come back,
We'll have Well County District Attorney Michael Rourke on the
phone with us. He's going to talk to us about
these competency issues and just how bad the problem has
(18:27):
really become in this state. If you're listening to the
Dan Caples Show here with Well Kunty Sheriff Steve Reams
as your guest.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Host, you're listening to the Dan Kapliss Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Welcome back to the Dan Capla Show here with Well
County Sheriff Steve Riams as you fill in guest host.
And when we went to break, we were talking a
little bit about how the state of Colorado is somewhat
out of control when it comes to the criminal justice
system and this new new found I guess we'll say
example of being able to use incompetency for suspects in
(19:07):
order to abscond from being being held accountable for their crimes,
and not just Weld County but across the state. But
a good person to message this issue is none other
than the Weld County District Attorney, Michael Rourke for the
fighting nineteenth. Michael, thanks for being on the phone with us.
Speaker 5 (19:27):
Thanks for having me again.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
You know, you kind of spoke to the listeners about
this very issue, and I'd ask you to come on
to talk about something else, but you you actually brought
this up and said you wanted to educate the listeners
about the concern that you were seeing not just in
Weld County, but you know, obviously hearing it across the
state with these incompetency hearings, and how it was being
weaponized by the public defenders and others to basically get
(19:52):
their clients out of any kind of accountability for their actions.
And we saw this with Solomon Gallaghan. But you've been
seeing for a while. Give us your take on this.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
Sure, Absolutely, this is a problem that the legislature has
created for us, and really at this point there's no solution.
The problem looks like this, and this is something that
you and I obviously have talked about on a number
of occasions. But we have an inmate currently in the
Well County jail who I won't name, who has had
previous violent cases, dangerous violent cases dismissed by other jurisdictions,
(20:26):
other courts because the defendant has been found to be
incompetent to stand trial and not likely to be able
to be restored to competency within the foreseeable future. And
that's the important piece, is not able to be restored
in the foreseeable future. When that happens, a court under
our current legislation has no choice but to dismiss the
(20:48):
criminal case against that particular defendant, even if efforts at
restoration of competency for that individual have not been tried.
Is a judge, based on other collateral information that he
or she may have, thinks that perhaps, contrary to the
opinion that's received from an evaluator, thinks that perhaps restoration
(21:13):
might be of benefit. They have no choice, And we
are faced with a situation like that, what right now?
Like you and I both know when they're made in
your jail, who was very dangerous and who was on
the verge of having their cases dismissed because they are
being found incompetent and not restorable even though no efforts
have been tried at restoration.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
So you put a little bit of a timeframe on
this on this idea of being able to restore someone's
competency within the foreseeable future, what does that mean?
Speaker 5 (21:44):
Right, Well, that's a good question because it has never
been defined. It actually that language comes from a nineteen
seventy two United States Supreme Court being of course it does,
and there's never been a good effort at defining exactly
what exactly what constitutes a reasonable time frame. It's really
left to the discretion of the evaluator to come to
that conclusion after meeting with a defendant for an hour
(22:08):
or two, and if the professional opinion is not restorable
within the reasonable likelihood or within the reasonable force eable future,
then they render that opinion that they're not restorable. And
so there's no statutory guideline, there's no case law guideline.
It's really left to the discretion of each individual evaluator
(22:28):
mental health or incompetency of guilt.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
And these evaluators, these are people that you get to
pick correct.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
That's correct. They're either hired by the state or on occasion,
if a defendant has means, they can go out and
they can hire their own evaluator to come to these
conclusions and then The more difficult problem is for my
prosecutors in the courtroom, who are faced with this opinion
from an evaluator. And there is a presumption in the
statute that a defendant is not or will not be
(22:57):
restorable to competency, and so we have to over come
that presumption that someone is not restorable in addition to
having this opinion from an evaluator.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Okay, so all right, now I'm really now, I'm really
ticked off. So dude gets arrested, he or she gets arrested.
They come in and they're an abject mass. Okay, fine,
they and to use a very close example to the
one we're talking about, in my facility, they beat the
tar out of somebody. They come into the facility, they
(23:28):
claim incompetency. The public Defender's office or whomever is representing
them says, yep, we've got this evaluator, evaluator that says
this person's mentally incompetent. You have to challenge that. But
you don't get a chance to go find your own
person to challenge that competency. Correct, Like you you don't
get a you don't get your own doc to go
look at this person.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
Is that is that the way I'm hearing it, I
can at at state expense as a second opinion. But
again back to the issue. We're faced with evaluators who
don't want to put their professional reputation on the line
to come out and affirmative, affirmatively say yes, this person
may be restorable. And so what we're faced with is
a systemic prejudice, if you will, against the notion of
(24:12):
an individual being restorable in order to face criminal charges
and the potential of lengthy prison sentences in many of
our violent enemies. And so we have this presumption systemically,
we have the presumption in the case law that says
that that we are going to presume that a defendant
is not restorable, and we often have times have to
overcome that with a very high burden of proof in
(24:32):
a courtroom. We're simply not able to do.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah, I don't know how you could. I mean, and
you're still using the same pool of evaluators that are
approved by the.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
Stake correct exactly, exactly, yes, So it's not like.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
You can go out and say, hey, we got this
hired gun that will that will you know, give us
the real deal. And I hate to use it that way,
but you know, when you have a you know, a
professional witness on either side, that's typically someone who's more
favorable to one side or the other. You're not getting
you don't even have that opportunity.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Not in the vast majority of cases. You're exactly right.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Wow, And so you get this little bit of a
back and forth. You can't get to the point where
where criminal charges can be filed. What is the other
option you have available to you? So case has to
be dismissed? This person's not safe to go back. I mean,
obviously they're not competent to stand trial. They're probably not
competent to function in society. What other option do you
have available to you?
Speaker 5 (25:24):
You thought you were mad before. So here's the other
option we have available to us. It's called civil commitment.
And there's a statute. There's a series of statutes in
civil law that allow for a civil commitment of a
descendant who is deemed to be dangerous to themselves or others,
or gravely disabled. But there is a loophole, there's a
massive gap in the defendants we're talking about, because what
(25:47):
we have is a defendant who's found to be incompetent
and not restorable but oftentimes won't meet that definition that
exists in the civil realm of either gravely disabled or
a dangerous themselves or others because of the statuary definitions.
And so there's a massive gap in there in a
number of defendants who have to have their cases dismissed
(26:08):
aren't eligible for civil commitment into a facility in order
to try to receive some type of benefit. So they're
simply being released back into our communities.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
So all right, And maybe you're not in the position
to necessarily speak to this, but these folks that are
being found incompetent. Is this a is this a drug
induced issue oftentimes, or is this a true mental health
issue combination of both, or is it just kind of
run the gamut?
Speaker 5 (26:35):
Yeah, I think it runs the gamut. I think we
have seen a number of individuals who truly are mentally
ill suffer from some type of mental disease or defect
that renders them dangerousness to the dangerous to the community.
Oftentimes it's drug induced or or has a drug induced
component to it. But you're right, it runs the spectrum
between those ends of the spectrum, if you will.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
All right, So another factor here that I think people
don't understand when a person is is waiting for that
competency hearing. Let's say they are restored to some level
of competency, they go down to the state hospital, you know,
they get on some medication. Yeah, this person's good to
stand trial, and then they get shipped back to my jail.
Because of the backlog and the criminal justice system. How
(27:18):
often are you seeing where that person gets shipped back
to the county jail. They've been told that they're competent,
but because of how long it takes to get to trial,
or because of stall tactics from the public defender. How
many times do you see that same defendant decompensate again
and now it's time for trial or it's time for hearing,
and hey, this person's not normal again, are you? Is
that pretty common?
Speaker 5 (27:40):
Absolutely? And it is because oftentimes, without a specific court
order that we can talk about in a second, oftentimes,
when a defendant comes back to your jail, if they
are not voluntarily taking the medication that has been prescribed
to them by the state hospital doctors, and there's not
an order for force medication, which is very difficult to get,
don't have to come to your jail and necessarily take
(28:02):
the medications that will keep them competent in order to
stand trial, and so then they get that incompetency threshold again,
and we're back to the same score that we were
six months ago, a year ago, however long that may be.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I know this is an easy question, but is a
is this an issue that can be addressed through legislative changes?
Speaker 5 (28:22):
In your mind? I think it can, and I'm cautiously optimistic.
I know that there is an effort by a very
small working group that has just started looking at some
potential resolutions because of the gaps and the loopholes that
I talked about. I'm aware that they just had a
meeting this week. There's a couple of state legislators I'm
on that working group, as well as a representative of
(28:45):
the prose prosecution community, some other subject matter experts, and
in looking at what some other states have done incorporating
a similar standard on the criminal side versus the civil
commitment side, I think there is an effort or an
opportunity for us to get some progress so that we
don't simply open the doors to your jail and let
a dangerous person out in the community with at at
(29:07):
least some effort at restoration. I'm cautiously optimistic that we
can we can get that loophole closed this legislative session.
But it's going to take a lot of work on
a lot of different individual.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Parts, and it's going to take the Democrats actually agreeing
that this is a problem, and I'm not sure that
they're yet there yet, even with the Solomon Gallaghan style case,
I'm not sure that they're there yet. I hope you're right.
I'll be cautiously optimistic alongside you guys, with the colorad
of District Attorney's Council and whomever you're working with. But
right man, I'm going to hope, hope for the best.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
One. That is one I'm sorry to interrupt you share
that is one of our top priorities as an entity.
We just met yesterday to talk about our top legislative priorities,
and this is in our top three certainly going forward
this coming legislative session.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Well, Michael, we appreciate you being on District Attorney Michael Rourke.
You're always a point of wisdom on these issues, and again,
thank you for bringing this up all those weeks ago
when you were on here with me. Before you know,
I can't encourage listeners enough pay attention to what's going
on out there. And if you would, Michael, if there's
another one of these cases that we can highlight, please
(30:13):
let me know, because whether I'm hosting the show or
Dan hosting the show, this is an important thing for
the listeners to hear.
Speaker 5 (30:20):
Be happy to Sheriff, thanks for the partnership that we
had with your agency.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
You bet that's District Attorney Michael Rourke out of the
nineteenth just this judicial district. Heck of a guy. He's
been great on prosecutions. With that, we'll go to break.
When we come back, we'll catch a couple of calls
and catch up on these texts. You're listening to Dan
capless Show here with Well Kenny Sheriff Steve Rams, and.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Now back to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Welcome back to the Dan Caplish Show here with Well
Kenny Sheriff Steve Riams. We just got done talking with
District Attorney Michael Rourke about competency hearings and the infuriating
mess that the state has created around that issue. But
that's stirred a bunch of questions through text and a
phone call from Frank in Denver, Frank, I know you've
been holding for a little bit. What's your burning question there?
(31:04):
And says here you have a comment about mental instability.
Speaker 6 (31:08):
Yeah, well, first of all, thanks for bringing Da rourk Omer.
He certainly seems like a good person a hand a
lot of these things. But as I listened to you
talk and thank you for bringing this issue to illustrate
how complex and tough and potentially unsolvable some of these
mental conditions are. The medicine field doesn't have an absolute answer,
(31:32):
and I think when you're facing an opponent like the Democrats,
who are abound to determine to push the limits of
the legal system to try to oppose anything common sense
that you guys try to do to get these people
out the streets. You often. I didn't realize it was
so hard to get a mandatory medication order for some
(31:55):
of these mental disorders that are amenable to injections, you know,
monthly or something to control them. It's just a very
difficult problem. And I don't see us in America making
much progress until the Democrats basically change some of their
mos as far as is being willing to compromise and
(32:20):
work with the right. It's a very difficult situation, and
unfortunately it's manifested by Colorado's current position. So I would
implore a lot of intermediate independent voters to think long
and hard when they go to the voting booth, to
try to think about putting at least one of our
(32:41):
houses may to send it back into the right wing hand,
so that these people will be forced to come to
a better conclusion.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
I couldn't agree with you more, frank And you know,
I sell the time and you hear from others that
elections have consequences, and quite frankly, we've we're feeling the
consequences of our of our latest elections, if you will,
And I can't. While I cannot support anything that happened
around that Solomon Gallagan case, I mean, it's terrifying that
(33:10):
this person could end up back out on the street.
I'll also say that there's probably not a better case
to highlight just how broken the system is. So if
if nothing else comes from that, you know, maybe the
Democrats go, oh man, we need to we need to
step back into this. But Republicans aren't. They're you know,
they're just a little bit of the cause on this too.
I mean, there was a there was an an effort
(33:31):
to pass this bill and the bill that's associated with
his House Bill twenty four one zero three four. So
it just went through in one of the past legislative cycles.
And there were some there were some Republicans that voted
in support of this bill that they created a new
body of law that requires these releases, you know, without
really fully thinking it through. But Frank, your your comments
(33:53):
are on point as always, and thank you for calling in.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
So you know Frank's he's got a great point. I mean,
we had We've got a mess to fix here, and
it's it's not easy. It's going to take both sides
of the aisle. And this is what happens when you
have one party control and the only thing they care
about is, you know, pushing their own social agenda. Right now,
the Republicans have one party control out in DC, and
and I think they're using it wisely.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Is there an opportunity for things to go wrong? Of
course there is, but you know the opportunity for things
to go wrong in Colorado or we're way past the opportunity.
Speaker 5 (34:28):
We're there.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
So some of then are some of the texts here
someone says, what is an effing evaluator. It's a psychologist,
a psychiatrist who's approved by the state to make these, uh,
these determinations. Yeah, it's a it's a it's a tough thing.
But when we come back, we'll cover this a little
bit more. But we're going to dive in with Congressman
Gabe Evans right away to talk about what's going on
(34:52):
out in Washington, d C. With President Trump's recent efforts.
You're listening to the Dan Caflis Show here with Well
Kenny Sheriff, Steve
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