Welcome to Court Crawl, Colorado Politics’ roundup of news from the third branch of government. The state Supreme Court will return to downtown Denver this week to hear two days of oral arguments, while a couple of constitutional rights cases against Colorado’s third-largest city have received rulings in the past week.

Justices to hear cases

?  On Tuesday and Wednesday, the state’s Supreme Court justices will hear five cases, plus hold one public hearing about proposed changes for admitting lawyers to practice in Colorado. Colorado Politics is keeping its eye on these appeals in particular:

People v. Moreno: This calls into question whether the state’s law against harassment, which requires a perpetrator have an “intent to harass,” is so vague as to render part of the law unconstitutional.

Lodge Properties, Inc. v. Eagle County Board of Equalization: Vail Resorts is challenging the valuation of a combination hotel-condo building in Vail. The resort company believes the county overvalued its property by roughly double.

People in the Interest of My. K.M. and Ma. K.M.: In a case involving the federal Indian Child Welfare Act, the court will consider a requirement that counties make “active efforts” to provide services and prevent the breakup of American Indian families.

Death of a justice

? Former Justice Gregory J. Hobbs died last week at age 76 after serving on Colorado’s highest court from 1996 to 2015. An author and an authority on water law, Hobbs also spent his professional career with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy, and Water Education Colorado, the latter of which he helped create.

?  “Every generation of Colorado justices has to get on top of water….My maturation as a justice came in writing water opinions,” Hobbs told Colorado Politics’ predecessor, The Colorado Statesman, in 2015.

? Hobbs’ death comes after the loss of two other former justices this year: Mary Mullarkey and Gregory Kellam Scott, who both died in March.

? Colorado Politics’ Joey Bunch authored this remembrance of Hobbs.

Aurora in court

?  A district court judge permanently blocked the city of Aurora from enforcing its ban on felons serving in elected local office against one city council candidate, who had a felony on her record from two decades ago. The city council previously voted against enforcing that provision in its charter, but candidate Candice Bailey sought a judge’s determination that the felon ban was unconstitutional. Judge John E. Scipione didn’t go that far, but nonetheless found it problematic. 

? “This ruling confirms what the city council had already conceded – that prior to recent amendments, city ordinances concerning candidate eligibility were out of sync with our state constitution….[O]utside of specific constitutional prohibitions, decisions about a candidate’s prior justice system involvement and ability to serve in public office are up to voters to make on an individual basis.” –Rep. Mike Weissman, D-Aurora, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee

? “In the case of Ms. Bailey, having fought the hard fight in order to run, then running her race a mere six weeks before the scheduled election and placing in the middle of the heat, tells me that there are Aurorans who believe that someone with Ms. Bailey’s life experiences would represent them well in our local government.” -Leanne Wheeler, CCJRC4Action campaign manager

?  Meanwhile, in federal court, a judge allowed a man to reference the attorney general’s September report about patterns of biased policing and excessive force in Aurora as part of his own excessive force lawsuit.

Video recording police

?  The federal appeals court based in Denver, the 10th Circuit, will soon hear another case about whether the First Amendment protects the right of bystanders to record police in public. The topic resurfaced barely a month after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review another decision of the 10th Circuit that did not answer the question, leaving Colorado and the five other states in the circuit without a clear statement that the Constitution protects bystander recordings of the type that captured the brutality against Rodney King and George Floyd.

? In a major development to the current First Amendment, the U.S. Department of Justice has filed a brief in the 10th Circuit, ostensibly in support of neither party, but which asks the appellate court to recognize a constitutional right to record. The department, the brief explained, uses bystander video in its investigation of police departments.

Appeals court rulings

? The Colorado Court of Appeals has determined that prominent civil rights attorney Mari Newman may be held liable for allegedly defamatory comments she made in a press conference against the defendants in a class action lawsuit.

?  An Arapahoe County prosecutor told the jury in a murder trial that it had to consider whether the defendant was guilty of first-degree murder first before it could consider second-degree murder. That is not what the law says, the Court of Appeals ruled in granting a new trial.

?  The proponents of a ballot measure that would temporarily cut the sales tax rate are asking the Supreme Court to determine that a newly-enacted law governing ballot titles doesn’t apply to their initiative.

Vacancies and appointments

? The Senate Judiciary Committee recorded a tie vote last week on the nomination of Charlotte N. Sweeney to serve as a federal district court judge in Colorado. While the evenly-split committee has deadlocked on a handful of other Biden administration nominees, it is unusual for such an outcome on a trial court judge. (Her nomination will still proceed, albeit with an extra vote.)

? The governor appointed Justin B. Haenlein to succeed District Court Judge Michael K. Singer in the 13th Judicial District, which covers several counties in northeastern Colorado. Haenlein operates his own law firm and is a University of Denver graduate.

From the trial court

Here is a quick tour of decisions from Colorado’s federal trial court: 

? A magistrate judge ordered a male student at Regis University to go by his initials (instead of the pseudonym “John Doe”) in challenging his suspension for sexual misconduct.

?  A former employee of Jefferson County Public Schools may litigate his termination, which he believes was a retaliatory scheme to get rid of him rather than a genuine department restructuring.

?  Even though a woman was the victim of sexual trafficking at two Denver-area hotels for two years, she may not sue the hotels’ parent company for benefiting from her exploitation, a judge ruled.

?  A man detained in the Clear Creek County jail may sue for the excessive force allegedly used against him.

?  Plaintiffs filing a lawsuit against the Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems need to document their domicile before they can proceed with the case.

Miscellaneous decisions

?  A judge denied the request of Native American plaintiffs to block enforcement of a new state law prohibiting the use of most American Indian mascots in schools.

? The state Supreme Court’s ethics panel outlined the conditions under which a judge need not recuse themselves from a case if one of the attorneys involved is their friend.

? The Gazette provided an explanation of how race-based jury selection is still an issue, despite a decades-old U.S. Supreme Court ruling that outlawed explicit discrimination.

?  Denver is trying to block Nick Mitchell, the city’s former independent monitor, from testifying in a civil case related to excessive police force against racial justice protestors last summer.

And a word about SCOTUS

? The U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering whether to stick by the precedent that makes abortion legal in the United States, and Democratic state lawmakers are preparing to act if the conservative majority on the court overrules Roe v. Wade.