Welcome to Court Crawl, Colorado Politics’ roundup of news from the third branch of government. One of the judges on the Denver-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit has become something of an audio celebrity, and court watchers from around the country have noticed that Colorado’s senators are moving deliberately on the state’s federal judicial vacancies.

A peek behind the scenes

?  The Court Crawl can’t believe it is writing this sentence, but: did you hear about the federal judge who is making the rounds on podcasts lately? Yes, Judge Robert E. Bacharach of the 10th Circuit seems to be on the podcast circuit to promote his recent book, Legal Writing: A Judge’s Perspective on the Science and Rhetoric of the Written Word. The book (which has a five-star rating on Amazon), covers how to write effectively, and draws on the teachings of psycholinguistics and rhetoric.

?  Bacharach, a 2013 appointee of President Barack Obama from Oklahoma, has appeared on no fewer than three podcasts in recent months to spill a surprising amount of judicial trivia, given judges’ normal aversion to the media. As quick background, the 10th Circuit covers six states, is the final stop for most federal appeals, and hears cases in panels of three judges. Here are some things we learned:

?  “We will have five regular court terms during what I call the ‘school year,’ from September to May. During those court weeks, we’ll all fly to Denver, stay at a hotel near the courthouse, and all of us will convene in different panels, usually six cases each day.” -from Oklahoma Appeals – The Podcast 

?  “I do try to avoid pop culture references. I try to avoid humor….The problem when you use pop cultural references and humor in either a brief or a judicial opinion is, I doubt that any of your clients, when you have an appeal in a federal circuit court, think it’s funny or think it’s something that should be discussed in the same breath as whether the judge likes the Star Wars movie.” -from the California Appellate Law Podcast

?  “Our court is, I think, unique of all the circuit courts. When we have a published opinion, we circulate it to every judge in our circuit. The panel has already cast their votes…and all of those opinions get circulated to all the judges and the idea is if other judges are gonna be bound by this now as precedent, they ought to be able to voice their input to the judges on the panel….That is one downside of our process is that it does add to the delay.” -from the Texas Appellate Law Podcast (Bacharach also said he was Obama’s third choice, and, as a lifelong Democrat, was the preferred pick of the late U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.)

The judicial assembly line

?  National media have reported that President Joe Biden is having his judicial nominees confirmed at a fairly rapid clip. In reality, the trend isn’t uniform, with states like California, New York and Pennsylvania having a plethora of vacancies with no named nominees. But the speedy (for the government) pace of nominations is absolutely true of Colorado, and court watchers are complimenting the state’s two senators for taking judicial selection seriously.

First Amendment gets a workout

?  The 10th Circuit released two decisions implicating religious freedom last week. The first rejected a lawsuit from a Messianic Jewish detainee who sued after not being given a kosher diet in accordance with his faith. The second reinstated the lawsuit of a Muslim inmate who was forced to shave his beard, despite an exemption in the state prison system for beards that are part of religious expression.

?  For those keeping track at home, those two rulings were in addition to two other ones that also came down recently: allowing an atheist to sue his parole officer for forcing him into a Christian transition program and clarifying that the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act requires a Christian web designer to offer her services to same-sex couples who want a wedding website.

Vacancies and appointments

?  The governor is considering three finalists to succeed retiring District Court Judge Jann Patrice DuBois in the Fourth Judicial District of El Paso and Teller counties. The candidates are El Paso County Judge Samuel Evig, Marika Frady and El Paso County Magistrate William Moller.

?  Sedgwick County Court Judge James Craig Dolezal will retire on October 1, and applications for the part-time position are due by September 1. Voters retained Dolezal in 2020, despite an unfavorable recommendation from the performance commission. Dolezal is not a lawyer, and the judgeship for the county of 2,300 people requires only a high school education.

An official judicial welcome

?  Even though U.S. District Court Judge Regina M. Rodriguez was sworn in early in July, Biden’s first judicial appointee for Colorado held a formal investiture ceremony at the downtown Denver courthouse on Friday. Dignitaries in attendance included U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, recently-confirmed ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar, and four of the seven state Supreme Court justices. (Sadly, no photos were allowed.)

?  Retired Denver District Court Judge Christina Habas gave Rodriguez some words of tough love: “Even when we sit on these high benches and we wear these pretty robes, we are the least important people in the courtroom. That’s a fact. Never forget it.”

?  But Rodriguez’s husband, Arnold Woods, dished out some regular love: “Judge Gina….It makes me very proud to see that my wife who’s a supermom, a superwife, a supersister, a superfriend, is now officially a superjudge.”

Miscellaneous decisions

?  Two former police officers in Rangely are suing the Rio Blanco County sheriff for allegedly interfering in the personnel investigation that resulted in their forced resignations. The events leading up to the lawsuit were the subject of a 2019 investigation by The Colorado Independent and The Rio Blanco Herald Times.

?  Dominion Voting Systems, the Denver company that was the target of right-wing conspiracies in the wake of the 2020 election, has sued two conservative news networks for defamation.

?  While a Colorado Springs man pleaded guilty for his participation in the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, the U.S. District Court judge for the District of Columbia was perplexed at the small amount of his restitution ($500) relative to the overall cost of the pro-Trump riot ($483 million).

?  The chief judge of Mesa County, who is being sued for a man’s repeated wrongful arrests, denied in federal court that he was responsible for a constitutional violation.