Denver has a fentanyl problem.
But Denver may have an even bigger criminal-justice problem.
For years, residents have watched fentanyl spread through their neighborhoods, businesses close, homelessness grow and the cost of living climb beyond what many working families can afford. They have watched police officers make arrests only to see defendants return to the streets. They have watched serious criminal cases disappear into plea negotiations that leave the public wondering how the person accused of committing the crime received so little punishment.
At some point, the question stops being simply why are people selling fentanyl?
The question becomes:
Why does Denver’s justice system continue to make it possible for some of them to do it with relatively little consequence?
That question deserves to be directed squarely at the Denver District Attorney’s Office and the judges who oversee these cases.
The Fentanyl Dealer Isn’t the Only Problem
Fentanyl trafficking is not a victimless crime.
The person selling a counterfeit pill may never meet the person who ultimately dies from it. The dealer may not know the victim’s name, age or family.
But the transaction still has a victim.
And when prosecutors take a case involving significant quantities of fentanyl and negotiate it down to an offense that carries substantially less serious consequences, the public has a right to question the decision.
That does not mean every drug defendant should receive the maximum possible sentence.
It does mean that prosecutorial discretion has consequences.
The Denver District Attorney’s Office has enormous power in that process. Prosecutors determine what charges to file, make recommendations concerning bond and negotiate plea agreements. [1]
The judge ultimately controls the sentence, but the plea negotiated by the prosecution often determines the universe of outcomes available to the court.
That makes the DA’s office one of the most important players in determining whether a fentanyl trafficker faces meaningful punishment or walks away with probation.
The Immigration-Friendly Plea
This is where the issue becomes particularly troubling.
Denver’s own historical policy documents show that immigration consequences have been intentionally incorporated into plea negotiations. In its 2017 annual report, the Denver DA’s Office stated that it was developing a policy encouraging prosecutors to consider collateral consequences, including immigration consequences, when offering pleas to undocumented defendants. [2]
The argument for doing so is straightforward: a criminal conviction can have devastating immigration consequences.
But there is another side to that equation.
What happens when protecting a defendant from immigration consequences results in a plea that substantially reduces the criminal consequences of the conduct?
That is the question Denver residents should be asking.
If a person is accused of trafficking fentanyl, should prosecutors be negotiating around the immigration consequences of a drug conviction?
If the answer is yes, where is the line?
And who is speaking for the victim when that decision is made?
Because there is an enormous difference between giving a defendant an opportunity to defend themselves in court and structuring a plea specifically to avoid consequences that would otherwise follow from a conviction.
Those are not the same thing.
Criminal Mischief Instead of Drug Trafficking?
One of the most disturbing allegations arising from Denver’s criminal court system is that defendants accused of serious drug offenses can sometimes receive pleas to crimes such as criminal mischief because those offenses have fewer immigration consequences.
If that is happening, it deserves far more scrutiny.
Not because the defendant is an immigrant.
Not because the defendant lacks legal status.
But because the underlying allegation is drug trafficking.
If prosecutors believe there is sufficient evidence to charge someone with trafficking fentanyl, the public deserves to understand why the final conviction could instead be an unrelated property offense.
Was the original case weak?
Was the quantity of fentanyl insufficient to prove intent to distribute?
Did evidence become inadmissible?
Did witnesses become unavailable?
Or was immigration status itself a material reason for the plea?
Those distinctions matter.
If there is a legitimate evidentiary reason for reducing a case, say so.
If there is a legal reason, explain it.
But if a serious drug-trafficking case is being reduced primarily because the defendant could otherwise face immigration consequences, then Denver residents have every reason to question whether the system is prioritizing the defendant’s immigration status over the public-safety consequences of the underlying conduct.
And Then There Is Bond
The problems do not necessarily end with the plea.
They can begin at the bond hearing.
Judges rely on the information available to them when determining whether someone should remain in custody or be released. Criminal history is one part of that assessment.
But what happens when the available criminal history only reflects what happened inside the United States?
A person involved in an organized criminal enterprise outside the country may appear in a Colorado courtroom with little or no documented criminal history.
That does not necessarily mean the person is a first-time offender.
It may simply mean the American criminal-justice system does not have access to the complete picture.
That distinction matters enormously when the allegation involves fentanyl trafficking.
A defendant who has access to significant financial resources may be able to post a relatively modest bond and return to the community while the case proceeds.
And once released, the defendant has an opportunity to disappear, continue trafficking or simply walk away from the jurisdiction.
The question for Denver judges is not whether every defendant should be detained.
It is whether the system is accurately assessing who is actually standing in front of them.
The People Who Know What Is Happening
There are people who understand Denver’s drug-trafficking problem better than most policymakers ever will.
They are the detectives who spend months identifying suppliers.
The undercover officers who purchase fentanyl.
The investigators who track phone numbers and financial transactions.
The prosecutors who receive their case files.
And the judges who ultimately determine whether defendants remain behind bars.
These people see the system from completely different sides.
And when law enforcement officers repeatedly watch defendants receive reduced charges, low bonds or probationary sentences after significant drug investigations, it creates a dangerous perception:
That the work does not matter.
Why spend months building a trafficking case if the final result is a misdemeanor?
Why risk an undercover officer’s safety if the defendant will be back on the street?
Why investigate the supplier if the system only addresses the person standing at the bottom of the distribution chain?
That is how morale deteriorates.
And that is how communities lose faith in the justice system.
The DA Has the Power to Change the Equation
This is not an argument that prosecutors should pursue maximum sentences in every case.
It is an argument that serious conduct should produce serious consequences.
The Denver DA’s Office has demonstrated that it is capable of pursuing major organized-crime cases. The office has prosecuted organized criminal enterprises and drug-distribution cases, including cases involving substantial quantities of narcotics. [3]
The federal government has likewise demonstrated what substantial fentanyl trafficking cases can look like. In one Colorado case announced in January 2026, federal prosecutors alleged that investigators seized approximately 4,742 grams of fentanyl, roughly 45,000 pills, along with cocaine, methamphetamine, firearms and cash. [4]
And federal prosecutors have secured lengthy sentences in fentanyl cases involving distribution tied to deaths. [5]
So the question isn’t whether serious fentanyl trafficking can be prosecuted aggressively.
It can.
The question is whether Denver is consistently choosing to do so.
The Judges Cannot Be Ignored
The DA does not operate the courtroom alone.
Judges decide bond.
Judges approve plea agreements and impose sentences within the law.
Judges determine whether probation is appropriate and whether defendants remain in custody.
That means judges are part of the accountability equation.
If a defendant accused of significant fentanyl trafficking repeatedly receives a low bond and ultimately walks away with probation, residents deserve to ask whether the outcome adequately reflects the seriousness of the conduct.
Again, this is not an argument for abandoning due process.
It is an argument for recognizing that judicial discretion has consequences too.
Every lenient bond has a risk calculation.
Every plea agreement represents a prosecutorial decision.
Every sentence represents a judicial decision.
And every time the system chooses leniency in a serious trafficking case, it sends a message about what Denver considers an acceptable consequence.
The Victim Doesn’t Get a Plea Deal
There is one person who never gets to negotiate.
The victim.
The person who swallowed the counterfeit pill doesn’t get to ask for a lesser sentence.
The mother who finds her child dead doesn’t get to negotiate the plea.
The father who buries his son doesn’t get to ask the judge for probation.
The family doesn’t get an “immigration-friendly” outcome.
They get a coffin.
That is why the criminal justice system cannot lose sight of the difference between compassion for defendants and accountability for criminal conduct.
A defendant’s rights matter.
But so do the rights of the people harmed by the crime.
Denver Has a Choice
Denver can continue down the same road.
Police can conduct operations.
Detectives can make arrests.
Prosecutors can negotiate pleas.
Judges can set bonds and impose sentences.
And another fentanyl victim can die.
Or the city can decide that fentanyl trafficking is going to be treated as the deadly criminal enterprise that it is.
That means giving law enforcement the tools to investigate trafficking organizations.
It means prosecutors being willing to pursue serious charges when the evidence supports them.
It means judges having access to the information necessary to make informed decisions about dangerous defendants.
And it means refusing to let political considerations, whether they come from the left or the right, replace the fundamental purpose of the criminal justice system.
Justice.
Denver residents should not have to wonder whether the person accused of selling the fentanyl that killed their loved one received a reduced plea because of immigration consequences.
They should not have to wonder whether a trafficking defendant was released because the system failed to see the full picture.
And they should not have to wonder whether the people responsible for enforcing the law are more concerned with protecting defendants from consequences than protecting the public from the consequences of their crimes.
Denver’s fentanyl crisis will not be solved by another press conference.
It will not be solved by another targeted operation.
And it will not be solved by blaming one police officer, one prosecutor, one judge or one politician.
But it can begin with something much more fundamental:
Stop treating serious fentanyl trafficking like a problem that deserves a minor consequence.
Because when the justice system repeatedly gives the people selling deadly drugs a way out, the system itself becomes part of the problem.
Sources
[1] Colorado District Attorneys’ Council, Criminal Justice Process:
data.dacolorado.org/2nd/criminal-justice-process/
[2] Denver District Attorney’s Office, 2017 Annual Report:
denverda.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/2017-Annual-Report.pdf
[3] Denver District Attorney’s Office, “Denver DA Files COCCA Charges Against 13 Individuals”:
denverda.org/news-release/denver-da-files-cocca-charges-against-13-individuals/
[4] U.S. Department of Justice, “Rocky Ford Man Pleads Guilty to Multiple Firearm and Drug Charges”:
justice.gov/usao-co/pr/rocky-ford-man-pleads-guilty-multiple-firearm-and-drug-charges
[5] U.S. Department of Justice, “Two Sentenced After Pleading Guilty in Fentanyl-Related Deaths”:
justice.gov/usao-co/pr/two-sentenced-after-pleading-guilty-fentanyl-related-deaths
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