LAW WEEK COLORADO
Statewide courts reporter Ali McNally rounds up today’s court news.

David Kaplan, defense attorney for Mark Strodtman, said the home builder accused of mortgage fraud was just responsible for banging nails and putting up drywall. The closing arguments were yesterday afternoon.

Houston-based Patterson-UTI Drilling Co. has been ordered to turn over its personnel records as part of an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigation for alleged racial discrimination against minority workers.

Wanda Eileen Barzee admitted her role in helping her husband keep Elizabeth Smart captured and enslaved for nine months, and as sentenced yesterday to 15 years in federal prison.

Jurors are deciding the case of Fort Carson soldier Jomar Falu-Vives, who is accused of killing two people in a drive-by shooting.

The American Civil Liberties Union and its Colorado chapter will be in court Wednesday to present arguments in a lawsuit challenging the exclusion of two Denver residents from a public speech by President Bush in March 2005.

The first phase of an evaporative-wastewater facility southeast of De Beque was unanimously approved yesterday by the Mesa County Commission.