An Arapahoe County mother of three has been incarcerated for more than nine months due to a “series of confusing and unconstitutional orders” that barred the woman from discussing with others or speaking out against a ruling terminating her parental rights, a court filing states.

The orders came from former District Court Judge Natalie Chase, who in April resigned amid reports of racial misconduct after acknowledging that she “undermined confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary.” The mother, Courtney Propst, received four contempt-of-court citations and has been incarcerated at the Arapahoe County Jail since Aug. 31, 2020, and is not scheduled for release until December.

Suzanne Taheri, Propst’s new lawyer, said in a May 9 court filing that the jailing of her client violated the First Amendment, which grants a right to free speech, and the Eighth Amendment, which bars cruel and unusual punishment. Taheri sought a court order to seal the filing from public view, but The Gazette obtained a copy because no sealing order has been issued. The filing has been referred to a senior judge in Arapahoe County for consideration. Taheri also said the judge violated Propst’s 14th Amendment right to due process due to bias.

Taheri said she could not discuss the case due to the gag order .

The Colorado Supreme Court accepted Chase’s resignation and censured her in April after the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline revealed probable cause existed to initiate formal proceedings against Chase for multiple matters unrelated to Propst’s case. As part of her resignation, Chase stipulated that she used the N-word in front of a Black court employee, directed her office staff to perform personal assignments and called a fellow judge a derogatory name.

The Propst case revolves around a contentious divorce. During the case, the judge terminated Propst’s parental rights to her three daughters. Richard Bednarski, the lawyer who represented the husband, did not immediately respond to emails and telephone messages seeking comment on the case.

“The motion to terminate my rights as a loving and fit parent does not come close to the legal standard in Colorado to permanently terminate a parent’s rights,” a statement Propst read during a court proceeding states. “I have been proven mentally fit to parent my children by two psychological evaluations with support from three other mental health professionals. I love my children. I believe in my children and want the very best for them, and that includes having a loving relationship with each of my children.”

Propst did not supply The Gazette with the statement, which was obtained elsewhere.

The divorce case remains sealed from public view, making it difficult to understand the judge’s reasoning. A woman who answered a phone number that was listed for Chase said she was not the former judge and hung up.

The court filing seeking to release Propst from custody states that Chase’s order barring Propst from discussing the case with anyone but the attorney representing her was unconstitutionally restrictive.

It states Chase’s orders stripped Propst of her ability to obtain legal representation after another attorney bowed out. Propst also lost her alimony and had her assets frozen after the court issued a default judgment in a defamation lawsuit brought by her husband, according to the filing.

“During periods of time when petitioner didn’t have an attorney, she was barred from seeking help to obtain one because that, too, would be discussing the case,” the filing on her behalf states.

The filing states that during one hearing, Chase “made her hostility” to Propst clear. The judge stated during a June 2019 hearing that the allegation that Propst had communicated with one of Propst’s children made her “blood start to boil.” The judge didn’t take testimony on that allegation, the filing states.

The judge ordered Propst in May to take down a social media post about the case within one hour and found Propst in contempt in August. The judge issued another order in August that stated that “no party” is to “release any filing” on this case to “any third party.”

A portion of the transcript of a Sept. 23 hearing recited in the court filing seeks Propst’s release. It reflects that the judge stated during the hearing: “She is not to communicate, and I don’t know how many times I have to say this — to communicate with third parties about this case. I expect another contempt coming down.”

In a response to a question about the order, Chase further stressed that her order extended even to discussions with medical care providers or therapists, the transcript reflects. “She may speak with her lawyers about this case,” the judge stated during the hearing. “That’s the only exception.”

At least one of the contempt hearings against Propst was presided over by a different judge than Chase, but the filing seeking to free Propst said that Chase had insured that hearing would be tainted because she already had ruled that Propst’s testimony was not credible. The filing claims that Chase subjected Propst to “bias and hostile treatment.”

“The record is replete with examples of the court’s intolerance of any criticism of its rulings and found those were further evidence of contempt,” according to the filing on Propst’s behalf.

The fourth contempt allegation was initiated in December and stemmed from a column written by University of Colorado Regent Heidi Ganahl that appeared in The Gazette, the filing states. Because the divorce records are sealed, The Gazette could not review all the circumstances behind that contempt finding.

The article did not name Propst or the judge in the case, but it quoted a statement from the mother that read: “A system shouldn’t be able to destroy someone’s life. Punished for protecting, for speaking truth, for loving my daughters so much — I would do anything for them.”

Ganahl, in an interview, said she never actually talked to Propst, the mother, about the case. She said she knew about the case through Moms Fight Back, a nonprofit organization Ganahl founded that focuses on family court reform and other issues.

“I can’t believe this judge can put her in jail for other people trying to help her,” said Ganahl, who is no longer affiliated with Moms Fight Back. “We aren’t even allowed to whisper in each other’s ears about it. In my view, it’s outrageous.”

She said the gag order from the judge resulted in her receiving a telephone call from police, who initially told her she needed to take the column down because it violated the gag order. The police dropped any case against Ganahl after her attorney telephoned them. Ganahl said the police told her lawyer they had since learned that the gag order from the judge only restrained Propst from talking about the case, not third parties who knew about it.