Justice Maria E. Berkenkotter poked gentle fun at the unusually large gap between her first day on the job in January 2021 and her public swearing-in nearly 21 months later.

“Thank you all so much for being here to celebrate the 633rd-day anniversary of my appointment,” Berkenkotter said to laughter during her late-September ceremony.

Gov. Jared Polis selected Berkenkotter for the state’s seven-member Supreme Court in November 2020 upon the retirement of former Chief Justice Nathan B. Coats. Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Chief Justice Brian D. Boatright administered her oath of office privately several weeks later. Her ceremonial swearing-in, known as an investiture, was left for another day.

Berkenkotter admitted that, as the months ticked by, she considered forgoing an investiture ceremony entirely.

“I am a profoundly private person with a deep and abiding distaste for talking about myself,” she said. But “I quickly realized, this is not really about me. Instead, this is my opportunity to publicly say, ‘Thank you.'”

To date, Berkenkotter has authored a slate of opinions for the court, touching on mental evaluations for juvenile defendants, the authority of judges to order visitation in child welfare cases, the ability of criminal defendants to mount a complete defense at trial, and the process for returning illegally-seized property to a defendant after prosecutors drop charges.

She has also spoken up in dissent on a handful of occasions, believing an Adams County defendant had clearly invoked his constitutional right to an attorney while being interrogated – contrary to the majority’s view – and disputing how much money people who steal public benefits actually owe the government.

“Justice Berkenkotter is humble and thoughtful, with a brilliant legal mind,” said Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera, representing the Polis administration at Berkenkotter’s swearing-in. “Through your work, you are making our legal system better and our state a better place for everyone.”

Immediately prior to her appointment, Berkenkotter worked as a mediator for a dispute resolution firm, while simultaneously helping coach judges on their performance. Prior to that, she spent four years as the chief judge of the Boulder County District Court, where she was first appointed as a trial judge in 2006 by Gov. Bill Owens.

Berkenkotter was a finalist for the previous vacancy on the Supreme Court in 2018, an appointment that ultimately went to Justice Carlos A. Samour Jr., who was then the chief judge of the 18th Judicial District. Berkenkotter chose Samour to escort her to the bench after taking the oath of office during her investiture.

During her remarks, Berkenkotter repeatedly described the effects of COVID-19 on her own first months in the job and on the judicial branch broadly. She profusely thanked court personnel and those who worked in the legal profession for their efforts to keep the criminal and civil justice systems functioning, even at risk to their own personal health.

“Not all heroes wear capes,” she said.

Berkenkotter also reflected on her selection process, which occurred prior to the widespread deployment of COVID-19 vaccines. She sat for an in-person interview with Polis at the governor’s mansion after taking a rapid test, putting on a mask, and remaining roughly 10 feet apart from others in the room.

“It was a surreal experience doing the most important job interview of my life without being able to see anyone’s facial expressions,” she noted. Berkenkotter added that the extraordinary precautions continued through her first months on the job, as the only people present in the Supreme Court’s offices were the justices themselves.

“But here’s the thing: Nothing ever felt distant,” she said to her colleagues. “You’ve all made me feel from the very beginning that my voice and my views mattered to you.”

Berkenkotter selected Carol Glowinsky, a retired Boulder County judge who worked alongside Berkenkotter during her first years on the trial court, to provide remarks at her ceremony. Another attendee read from the prepared speech, after Glowinsky was involved in a bicycle accident.

Glowinsky painted a deeply personal portrait of Berkenkotter, describing how the two were part of a bicycling group of mostly female judges, and had ridden together in Spain, New York City and Palisade. She also described Berkenkotter participating in “Tube to Work Day,” in which people commute to work on an inner tube down Boulder Creek.

“What she does love is a challenge,” Glowinsky wrote. Being chief judge of Boulder County “involved working with the many constituents of our justice system to make it more effective, efficient and accessible – all the while being responsible for the management of close to 200 employees, a budget of nearly $14 million and handling a full caseload, including several high-profile murder trials with intense public and media scrutiny.”

In recounting her journey to the Supreme Court, Berkenkotter acknowledged she grew up in an “extremely eccentric household,” including two pet raccoons and parents who finished graduate school in the humanities at the same time she began her junior year of high school. She teared up in recounting how her father, mother and sister are now deceased due to cancer.

“This work should be challenging because we are charged with making so many important decisions that touch so many people’s lives,” Berkenkotter said. “It is, nonetheless, work that can take a toll.”

In attendance at Berkenkotter’s investiture were Judge Timothy M. Tymkovich of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit; Judge Allison H. Eid, also of the 10th Circuit and a former member of the Colorado Supreme Court; former justices Jean Dubofsky and Coats; Chief Judge Gilbert M. Román of the state’s Court of Appeals, along with several other members of the appellate court; Natalie Hanlon Leh, the second-highest official in the Colorado Attorney General’s Office; and Eric Olson, Colorado’s solicitor general.