Welcome to Court Crawl, Colorado Politics’ roundup of news from the third branch of government. While the federal appeals court in Colorado clarified the rules for granting early release to inmates, Colorado’s Supreme Court has instituted a new rule for diversity training.

Equity and diversity

> Colorado has joined the handful of states that requires equity, diversity and inclusivity training for lawyers. The state Supreme Court on Thursday approved the rule change, which enjoyed the support of Colorado’s various bar associations and Attorney General Phil Weiser. The requirement for two credit hours of instruction during a three-year period is intended to help lawyers represent diverse populations and recognize bias in the legal system.

Speaking of bias…

> News broke on Friday that an Arapahoe County judge will resign for multiple instances of misconduct, including having her court staff attend to her personal business and saying the N-word multiple times in front of a Black employee. District Court Judge Natalie T. Chase, a 2014 appointee of then-Gov. John Hickenlooper, also voiced opinions from the bench about the Black Lives Matter movement.

?  Although some readers labeled this an example of “cancel culture,” in which a person lost their job for expressing their political views, it was Chase who volunteered her resignation, according to the Supreme Court’s narrative.

> Court Crawl devotees may remember that Chase’s handling of a Black defendant’s criminal trial was the subject of a Court of Appeals decision earlier this month. The appellate panel found likely racial discrimination had occurred when the prosecution excused at least two people of color from the jury pool, and Chase interjected her own non-racial explanation before the prosecutor could offer his.

Body language, regular language

> In other news out of the Supreme Court, the justices decided 6-1 that an officer’s non-expert testimony was acceptable at trial, in which he told jurors how he interpreted a teenager’s non-verbal answer to be a lie.

> The justices also reeled in a Court of Appeals panel that said if a person commits a new crime during a police interrogation, the evidence is admissible even if the interrogation was unconstitutional. Instead, the Supreme Court established a standard of “it depends.”

Meanwhile, at the federal level

> Big news for inmates seeking sentence reductions: the federal appeals court based in Denver has clarified that lower court judges are not bound by federal sentencing guidelines when deciding whether to grant early release.

?  The First Step Act, a major criminal justice reform bill passed in 2018, expanded the role of trial courts to grant compassionate release to inmates.

?  Because the sentencing guidelines were never updated to account for this change, multiple circuit courts of appeals have now ruled the guidelines are “policy statements” for courts, and not binding directives.

> There was nothing unconstitutional about the warrant to seize a Park County rancher’s malnourished and dying horses during a brutal cold spell, a federal judge found.

> A Muslim employee of the Colorado Department of Corrections received poor performance reviews and a demotion. Right before that, his supervisor saw him praying. A judge said a jury could reasonably see a discriminationatory connection between the events.

> Hours after a medical contractor cleared an Arapahoe County jail detainee from suicide watch, the detainee killed himself. His family’s lawsuit against the contractor will proceed, on the grounds that she showed deliberate indifference to his suicide risk.

Weiser watch

> Attorney General Phil Weiser joined other Democratic attorneys general in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold California’s rule requiring nonprofits to report their major donors – confidentially – to the state.

?  Disclosure allows states “to check the accuracy of charities’ financial reporting, ensure compliance with basic regulatory responsibilities, and identify and remedy fraud and abuse.” –March 31 legal brief

A focus on SCOTUS

> The conservative Centennial Institute will host a virtual lecture at 7 p.m. tonight about the politics of U.S. Supreme Court nominations and various proposals for court reform.

?  President Joe Biden recently signed an executive order establishing a 36-member commission to explore Supreme Court reform, specifically: “the Court’s role in the Constitutional system; the length of service and turnover of justices on the Court; the membership and size of the Court; and the Court’s case selection, rules, and practices.”

?  For another perspective on Court reform, the Brookings Institution has a roadmap of options.