In an unusually brief oral argument before the Colorado Supreme Court, both the attorney generalâs office and the defense agreed: trial courts still have the authority to return unlawfully-seized property to criminal defendants for weeks beyond when prosecutors drop charges. The parties appeared before the justices on Wednesday in opposition to a Court of Appeals ruling last year, which found a Denver judge lost the ability to return firearms and ammunition to a defendant at the instant the prosecutors dismissed the charges against him. âIf the state still has the defendantâs stuff, there is more for the court to do,â argued Mark Evans, the attorney for Mark A. Strepka, to the justices.