Colorado Politics reports that the Colorado Supreme Court will decide whether Douglas County prosecutors had authority to prosecute a New York woman whose alleged conduct happened outside Colorado. The case involves Erin Brennan, who lived in New York with her children after divorce, while her ex-husband had moved to Colorado. Prosecutors said Brennan authorized a New York summer camp to charge more than $10,000 to a credit card that was already on file from a prior year.
A jury convicted Brennan in 2023 of unauthorized use of a financial device and identity theft, but the Colorado Court of Appeals later agreed with her that Colorado lacked authority because the alleged conduct occurred in New York. Now the state Supreme Court gets the legal nerd bomb: when does an out-of-state act become enough of a Colorado crime for Colorado prosecutors to haul someone into our courts?
The Bullet Point Brief
- This is not really about summer camp, divorce, or one messy family credit-card fight. It is about how far Colorado’s criminal code can stretch before it starts doing yoga in another time zone.
- Colorado law requires that a crime occur “wholly or partly within the state.” Brennan’s defense argued that nothing she allegedly did happened in Colorado. That is not a technicality. That is the difference between jurisdiction and government freelancing.
- A trial judge found a “sufficient nexus” to Colorado because the alleged victim was here. The Court of Appeals said not so fast, noting the alleged act involved contacting a camp in New York about a credit card already on file. In normal-person English: she was in New York, the camp was in New York, and Colorado prosecutors still wanted the case.
- The state argues the Court of Appeals’ decision limits prosecutors’ ability to charge out-of-state actors who target Coloradans, especially in financial crimes and identity theft. That concern is not crazy. But neither is worrying that “Colorado interest” could become a magic spell for “pack a bag, defendant.”
- In a world where everything is digital, interstate, remote, relocated, post-divorce, and bureaucratically tangled, jurisdiction matters. Otherwise every prosecutor with a grievance and a state seal gets a Stretch Armstrong arm and a travel budget.
My Bottom Line
This is a Colorado government-power case, not a cheap true-crime dunk. We do not know every fact behind the family dispute, and we are not here to declare guilt, innocence, sainthood, villainy, or who should have paid for summer camp. The question that matters is bigger: how far can Colorado reach across state lines to criminally prosecute someone who allegedly did the bad thing somewhere else?
That question matters because state borders are not decorative. They are not suggestions. They are not “vibes” for prosecutors to interpret after coffee. Criminal jurisdiction is one of the places where government needs a short leash, a bright line, and somebody in a black robe willing to say, “No, you may not turn the entire United States into Douglas County with better restaurants.”
Now, to be fair, Colorado has a real interest in protecting Coloradans from financial crimes, identity theft, fraud, and digital schemes that cross state lines. Nobody wants a system where an out-of-state crook gets a free pass because he committed the scam from a laptop in another ZIP code. But that is exactly why the rule matters. The law needs to distinguish between a real Colorado crime and jurisdictional Stretch Armstrong bullshit.
Because once government gets comfortable saying, “the impact landed here, so we get a bite,” the bite never stays small. Today it is a credit card in a post-divorce dispute. Tomorrow it is speech, emails, payments, business records, online activity, family court fights, or some other interstate mess where multiple states could claim a piece. Normal people are the ones who eventually get grabbed by the collar.
Colorado already acts like it owns your paycheck, your gas stove, your grocery bag, your lightbulbs, and your Tuesday afternoon. Now the Supreme Court gets to decide whether the criminal code comes with frequent-flyer miles. Let’s hope the justices remember that power without boundaries is not justice. It is just government with a boarding pass.
Source: Colorado Politics
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