Colorado’s seven Supreme Court justices have largely complied with state laws requiring them to annually disclose their financial holdings and that of their spouses and family.

But a Denver Gazette review of those filings going back several years – financial disclosures, honoraria and gifts they received, and any outside employment they have – found a few areas that either bare a flaw in the reporting system or expose areas where some say the justices could have done better in their transparency.

They include at least one lost annual filing with the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, not regularly identifying the name of a spouse – seen by many as likely the strongest possible conflict of interest – and taking part in cases in which they had a tangential connection with one of the parties, the review found.

The judges interviewed by The Denver Gazette each waved off any concerns, saying it’s either a system malfunction or simply insignificant.

The Denver Gazette’s analysis comes on the heels of demands for reform to financial disclosures made by the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. At least two federal justices were found not to have disclosed gifts or trips they had taken that were paid for by others, according to news reports.

All of Colorado’s justices are up to date with their financial disclosures for the past several years, The Denver Gazette review found, but one of them – Chief Justice Brian Boatright – did not have one on file for 2014. That’s because the Secretary of State’s office that keeps the records said it was overlooked and didn’t locate it until after The Gazette asked Boatright about it.

Boatright was appointed to the Supreme Court in October 2011 by Gov. John Hickenlooper. He had been a Jefferson County district court judge and was required to annually file financial disclosures as well, which he has.

Boatright filed his financial disclosures as a Supreme Court justice in 2012 and 2013, records show, and every year from 2015 onward.

As for 2014, at first, the secretary of state’s office said it was never filed. Then, after Boatright provided that office with emails from that year showing his assistant had sent the documents, it was located and properly recorded.

A secretary of state spokesman said it was “located after further research” and had been missing because the document “was filed in such a way that, when coupled with the fact that the file was not sent by Justice Boatright himself, it did not appear in searches performed by three separate staff members.”

When contacted by The Gazette about the missing filing, Boatright insisted he filed the document and provided The Denver Gazette with an emailed copy of a cover letter he said was mailed to the secretary of state’s election division and a disclosure form, both dated Jan. 6, 2014. His form showed no changes from the previous year’s filing.

“I do not believe that there was a lapse in my filings,” Boatright wrote in an email to The Denver Gazette. “I can only speculate that they may have misplaced my filing with my Honoraria Disclosure that I filed at the same time and listed first in my letter.”

Boatright’s 2013 filing showed he also had no changes from the previous year’s report – disclosures must be filed regardless of whether there is any material difference to their personal holdings – and his 2015 filing showed he picked up a pair of low-interest loans, one from Fifth Third Bank and one from Capital One Retain Services. The disclosure does not describe the types of debt they were nor the dollar amounts involved.

Even though the disclosure was not properly recorded by the secretary of state at the time, Boatright, a former prosecutor, was unanimously recommended for retention that year by the State Commission on Judicial Performance and 68.4% of the voters agreed.

“My timely filing would explain why the Performance Commission did not mention any lapse in my evaluation,” Boatright added. “There was none.”

Boatright became chief justice of the court in January 2021.

A lapse in the secretary of state’s record-keeping system could spell trouble for judges and other state officials – the governor and legislators among them – who are required to file the documents annually.

The state law requiring the disclosures says anyone “who willfully fails to make any filing required” by the statute “is guilty of a misdemeanor” punishable by a fine ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. It gives no statute of limitations on the infraction nor any enforcement mechanism.

The State Court Administrator’s office which oversees the operations of the Colorado court system annually sends an email to all judges and justices reminding them of their requirement to file the reports, according to copies of that correspondence obtained by The Denver Gazette.

Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office at first said it’s not responsible for any missing or improperly sent documents and that Boatright’s 2014 disclosure remained officially not on record.

“The Department of State serves solely in a ministerial role as the repository for these filings,” spokeswoman Annie Orloff told The Denver Gazette in an email. “It is incumbent on the elected officials who are required to file personal financial disclosures to ensure their required forms are properly completed and received.”

That changed after Boatright showed that office copies of his assistant’s emails that asked for confirmation of the filing.

High court in the cross-hairs

The U.S. Supreme Court scandal exploded anew on Tuesday, when Justice Samuel Alito lashed out at a ProPublica report that focused on an undisclosed fishing trip he made in 2008 that was in part paid for by a billionaire Republican donor who has had a number of cases before the high court.

That came just after ProPublica reports that Justice Clarence Thomas had accepted gifts and lavish trips from a different wealthy Republican donor and did not disclose them, either.

Thomas said he did not make the disclosure because he was a close personal friend of the donor. In a opinion published in The Wall Street Journal, Alito said that he didn’t believe he was required to disclose the trip or recuse from any of the cases involving the donor.

Federal laws require disclosure of gifts over a certain value but make exceptions for the “personal hospitality” at their residence or properties they own. Advocacy groups for greater transparency have called for an overhaul to what justices are required to disclose about their personal lives.

Colorado laws are straightforward, although a 2013 analysis of the level of disclosure in the 50 states found it was only one of eight to earn a passing grade – barely.

The Center for Public Integrity found that although Colorado requires judges to report the sources of income and their financial holdings, it requires no perspective or dollar amounts, only that they exceed $5,000. Similarly, there is no requirement to report how much money they earn from investments nor the amount of any debt they hold or its purpose, only that it is more than $1,000.

The Denver Gazette found that while the justices generally identify their spouses by name whenever they file wholesale updates to their disclosures, that’s not an annual requirement and sometimes lag years between those identifications.

For example, for one justice – William Hood III – his 2018 annual report showed changes to his holdings and merely identified his spouse as his “wife.” Reports annually after that showed no new updates. The Denver Gazette had to go back to 2013, when Hood was a Denver County district court judge, to find his wife is former child-advocacy attorney Diana Goldberg.

Hood told The Denver Gazette that there was “no mystery here.”

“My wife of almost 33 years is Diana Goldberg,” he wrote in an email. “She is the executive director of SungateKids, a children’s advocacy center that primarily conducts forensic interviews of children alleging abuse.”

He said he would take better care to ensure she was more readily identified in future filings.

The purpose of financial disclosures among the judiciary “is to maintain public confidence in the integrity of government officials and to promote trust of the people in the objectivity of their public servants,” according to the Burnham Law firm in Denver.

Judges recuse … or don’t

The Denver Gazette found a few instances where a justice participated in a case where it was unclear if they had some connection to the litigants. There is no law requiring judges to recuse themselves from a case, but the rules of judicial conduct say they should when their “impartiality might be reasonably questioned.” That includes cases involving a family member or those where they have a financial interest in one of the litigants.

It has happened.

Boatright, for example, recused himself from a 2019 case that involved Bellco Credit Union, where he and his wife, Kara, had a 3.75% loan.

Boatright explained that he felt it necessary.

“With Bellco … in addition to a car loan, my wife and I have a savings account with Bellco, making my wife and I members of the credit union,” he told The Denver Gazette in an email. “Therefore, we do have an interest in the economic well-being of Bellco. Although any economic impact on me would be (minimal), making recusal not mandatory … I decided to err on the side of caution and recuse.”

Boatright noted that recusal is not automatic.

“I want to also note that in addition to recusal obligations, judges are required under … the Code of Judicial Conduct to hear the cases before them and to avoid recusal when recusal is unwarranted,” he said.

Justice Richard Gabriel participated in at least two cases that involved entities in which it was unclear the level of any financial connection.

In 2020, the court decided as a whole, including Gabriel, to deny a petition in a foreclosure case involving JP Morgan Chase Bank. In 2021, Gabriel wrote the opinion in a securities case involving J.P. Morgan Securities and Wells Fargo Securities and other firms that performed as underwriters.

Disclosures show Gabriel and his wife, Jill Wichlens, hold investments with JP Morgan and Wells Fargo Bank.

It’s unclear if Gabriel disclosed his holdings when the cases were heard, an allowance under the judicial code as long as the parties agree it’s not a problem for the judge to continue.

Gabriel told The Denver Gazette in an email that he saw no conflicts with his participation on both cases.

“As my disclosures indicate, I have a cash account with Morgan Stanley, several bank accounts with Wells Fargo, and a number of mutual funds, one of which was called J.P. Morgan Mid-Cap,” Gabriel wrote. “The nature of my accounts and their lack of connection to the entities at issue did not warrant my recusal.”

Boatright also participated in the Wells Fargo Securities decision. His 2021 disclosure identified a 1.9% loan he holds with Wells Fargo.

Similarly, Boatright took part in a decision on a case involving Wells Fargo in late 2015, but his financial disclosures of that year don’t give a full picture of his holdings – he filed only a small update.

Boatright explained his Wells Fargo situation was different than his decision to recuse on the Bellco matter.

“In both instances, my only connections to Wells Fargo were car loans, which were governed by the terms of the loan agreements,” Boatright explained. “As a result, I did not have any economic interest in the outcome of the cases or in the financial well-being of Wells Fargo. The outcome of the cases involving Wells Fargo could not have any impact on me, economic or otherwise.”

Gifts and honoraria payments

The justices regularly report any gifts or honoraria they receive. Gabriel appears to be the largest beneficiary, accepting more than $16,000 worth since 2016.

The most come from Gabriel’s near-annual trip paid by Exploration School to teach mock trial and criminal justice courses at Yale University, his alma mater, Wellesley College and Colby College on the east coast.

He’s accepted hotel expenses and airfares for business-related excursions to Beijing and Bulgaria, and lodging at conventions for the Colorado Defense Lawyers Association and the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association, where he was a speaker.

He’s even been paid $500 to play his trumpet at shows by Rocky Mountain Revels at Christmastime in Boulder each of the past two years.

Despite an annual salary of $199,632 as a Colorado Supreme Court justice, Melissa Hart supplemented that by about $58,000 by teaching at the University of Colorado school of law from 2018 through 2021.

Although listed as an adjunct professor at CU for classes such as legal ethics and professionalism during the 2021 and 2022 fall semesters, Hart’s honoraria disclosures with the secretary of state don’t reflect any salary she might have been paid those years.

She did report the income – $10,000 for each semester at CU, as well as $10,000 for each class she taught at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law in both spring sessions – in a filing that discloses outside compensation to the clerk of the Supreme Court.

The secretary of state report is publicly available online. The Supreme Court filing is not and requires a public-record request with the clerk.

Hart told The Denver Gazette in an email that it was simply a matter of not having to disclose the income to both offices.

“Someone pointed out to me – I do not recall who – that compensation for work was not encompassed in the honoraria and gifts category and was more appropriately reported in the form submitted to our Clerk of Court,” Hart wrote. “I have always reported them and it is a very public fact that I teach at the two law schools.”

Justice Monica Marquez, the incoming chief justice and the most senior member of the court in terms of service, is likely its most traveled and feted, according to her disclosures.

Named to the court in 2010 by Gov. Bill Ritter, Marquez has accepted nearly $15,000 in honoraria and gifts since 2016, according to her state filings.

She’s accepted hotel, travel and meal expenses from groups as diverse as the National Judicial College, Center for Legal Inclusiveness, American College of Trial Lawyers, American Law Institute, Colorado Bar Association, Colorado Women’s Bar Association, Hispanic National Bar Foundation, and the University of Berkeley Law School.

Apparently, it’s all part of being a good jurist in Colorado.

The Colorado Code of Judicial Conduct encourages judges to “engage in quasi-judicial activities” and to “speak, write, lecture, teach, and participate in other activities concerning the law, the legal system, and the administration of justice, including the role of the judiciary as an independent branch within our system of government.”

Correction: The original version of this story said Chief Justice Brian Boatright’s 2014 filing was missing from the Secretary of State’s records. The document was located after Boatright inquired with that office on Monday. It was properly filed in 2014.