The People of the State of Colorado v. Martin Novotny, Respondent the — Hood, J., Concurring in Part and Dissenting…

Summary

Justice Hood concurs that the state attorney general's office qualifies as a law-enforcement agency but dissents from abandoning Colorado's automatic-reversal rule for the erroneous denial of a for-cause challenge that forces a defendant to use a peremptory challenge. He reasons that the state may provide a broader remedy than federal constitutional law requires and that case-specific harmless-error review cannot meaningfully measure the impairment of the statutory right to use the full complement of peremptory challenges.