One of the core rights in the Bill of Rights is due process. The Government cannot take away your liberty without due process, an opportunity to be heard on the charges against you. That principle was front and center in a Denver courtroom today where accused gang member Brian Hicks, who owned the vehicle from which the shots killing Denver Bronco Darrent Williams were fired, was facing attempted murder charges in an unrelated case. The feds are holding Hicks on a drug case. They refused to turn him over to Denver so he could defend himself in the state case.

Defense attorney Harvey Steinberg has previously said having court hearings without his client is improper, and urged Robbins to dismiss the charges. “He has due-process rights, and due process means he comes to court,” Steinberg said. Robbins said Monday that federal prosecutors are “thumbing their nose” at the state court in refusing to release Hicks. “Their case is just more important than our little old attempted murder case,” he said.

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The state says it will re-file the charges after the federal case is finished. Harvey says, good luck on that, it won’t be easy.