Welcome to Court Crawl, Colorado Politics’ roundup of news from the third branch of government. A judge who broke many barriers over her legal career has announced she will step down from Colorado’s federal trial court, and the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing from organizations that really want it to decide a Colorado man’s First Amendment case.

History-making judge announces her retirement

?  Christine M. Arguello, one of the seven full-time judges on Colorado’s federal trial court and a 2008 George W. Bush appointee, has announced that in July 2022 she will step down from active duty. This will open the third vacancy on the court for President Joe Biden to fill since he took office.

?  Arguello has accomplished a long string of firsts, starting as the first Latina from Colorado to attend Harvard Law School and the first Latina to be elected to a Colorado Springs school board, culminating in her being the first Hispanic U.S. District Court judge for Colorado. She was also under consideration for a U.S. Supreme Court seat in 2009, but the nomination ultimately went to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina on the Court.

A pathway for Latino lawyers

?  Many, many people weighed in to Colorado Politics about Arguello’s impact on Colorado and the legal community. Justice Monica M. Márquez, who like Arguello worked at the attorney general’s office early in her career, talked not only about her own participation as a mentor in Arguello’s LAW SCHOOL…Yes We Can program, but also about the career incubator for high-ranking Latinos that the office became under former Attorney General Ken Salazar.

?  Arguello contacted Márquez when the latter first moved to Denver in the 1990s. “I remember that particular lunch because after we talked, she told me to dream big. And I always remembered that,” said Márquez, who is the first Latina member of the Colorado Supreme Court. “She was like an older sister/mentor to me.”

?  “There are so few Latinos in the profession, period, and even fewer Latinas,” she said. With Arguello’s Yes We Can program, “she specifically wanted to focus on the college years….There weren’t programs in place to hang onto those students and develop them through those college years.”

?  “So many of us [Latinos] came out of the Colorado Attorney General’s Office who were there with her under Ken Salazar,” Márquez said, referring to the first Latino elected to statewide office in Colorado, who is now the Biden administration’s ambassador to Mexico. “I had a conversation with Attorney General Phil Weiser when he first began and he asked if I had any advice. I said, Ken Salazar and Christy Arguello were wonderful peers in that office and were very mindful about giving opportunities to young, diverse lawyers in the office, opportunities that really catapulted our careers….Make sure you give diverse young lawyers more opportunities. The payoff isn’t immediate. It manifests 10 and 20 years later.”

Allies line up at SCOTUS for Colorado man’s appeal

?  In March, the federal appeals court based in Colorado prompted an outcry from civil liberties advocates when it decided Denver police were immune from liability for allegedly retaliating against a man who filmed their act of brutality. Importantly, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuits said it didn’t matter that the officers had been explicitly trained that bystanders had a First Amendment right to record them.

?  That man, Levi Frasier, appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, and civil liberties organizations and scholars have submitted more than a half dozen legal briefs urging the justices to take up the case. Their reasons vary: from wanting the Supreme Court to establish nationwide a right to record police, to asking the Supreme Court to clarify when government employees may receive qualified immunity, or hoping the justices will rebuff the 10th Circuit’s conclusion that police training is irrelevant.

?  The nation’s highest court only hears 1% of the appeals that are filed. But the support from outside organizations may raise the profile of Frasier’s case and provide a better-than-average chance that the justices will accept it.

Debt collector, Lakewood cop lose at 10th Circuit

?  It was a single call that went to voicemail, but the 10th Circuit said it was enough to hold a debt collection agency liable for violating federal law. A panel of appellate judges sided with a Colorado Springs woman who told Medicredit, Inc. she didn’t wish to be contacted anymore about the debt she reportedly owed. But the company called her one day later. Medicredit tried to claim she suffered no injury from the call, but the court disagreed.

?  By a 2-1 decision, a 10th Circuit panel said a Lakewood officer acted unreasonably by shooting a man outside his home. Although the dissent said the officer reasonably feared for her life, the majority observed that police allegedly A.) called the plaintiff from a blocked number, B.) told him some “friends” were watching his home, C.) refused to show themselves in the darkness, D.) knew the man believed they were impersonating police, and E.) didn’t warn him before using force.

Vacancies and appointments

?  The governor has appointed Robert C. James to the 13th Judicial District Court in northeastern Colorado, succeeding Judge Kevin L. Hoyer. James, who is currently a deputy district attorney, will take office on October 1. The judicial district has a total of five district judges covering seven counties.

Miscellaneous decisions

?  A Vail town ordinance violates state law by discriminating against condo owners, the Court of Appeals found.

?  The state Supreme Court will consider whether it is a constitutional violation that an incarcerated man cannot sue the government to recover his seized property.

?  A federal judge declined to dismiss a disability rights lawsuit against the city of Denver, which was filed by the Biden administration’s most recent judicial nominee for Colorado.

?  A lawsuit is challenging the city of Denver’s process for allowing sanctioned campsites for homeless residents.