Welcome to Court Crawl, Colorado Politics’ roundup of news from the third branch of government.

The state Supreme Court is concluding its term with a final batch of decisions, plus one of Colorado’s newer federal judges spoke candidly about what she’s seeing from the bench.

Supreme Court business

•  On purely technical grounds, the Supreme Court determined a proposed ballot initiative to ban gender-affirming care for minors is ineligible for the 2024 ballot, while a proposed initiative that would impose a blanket primary and ranked-choice voting in the general election is cleared for signature-gathering.

•  Although all seven members of the court noted it was highly problematic that a defense lawyer seemingly didn’t tell his client he was simultaneously being prosecuted by the same district attorney’s office, the Supreme Court decided, 5-2, the attorney’s conflict of interest might not entitle the defendant to a new trial after all.

•  The justices clarified that whether a sex offender may have contact with minor relatives while on probation depends upon the nature of the relationship, with parent-child-like scenarios requiring the greatest protection.

•  A Pueblo County judge believed state law obligated him to incarcerate a pretrial detainee until the man could undergo a sanity evaluation, even though he had posted bond and abided by his release conditions. The Supreme Court responded that the judge was wrong to jail the defendant.

•  Colorado’s “Make My Day” law, which authorizes lethal force for home defense, doesn’t apply when the killing is reckless, the court ruled.

•  Even though a Park County sheriff’s deputy didn’t corroborate a tip about hazardous driving before approaching a suspect’s vehicle, the Supreme Court determined the tip supplied reasonable suspicion to investigate.

•  Two Boulder County sheriff’s detectives repeatedly disregarded a murder suspect’s assertion of his right to silence, prompting the Supreme Court to bar the prosecution from using the defendant’s statements in its case.

•  During oral arguments, the justices seemed on board with a reading of the criminal rules that prohibits trial judges from restricting which postconviction claims appointed defense attorneys can pursue if their client has at least one plausible claim among their many allegations.

•  Members of the Supreme Court seemed skeptical that a man who was aggressively interrogated outside his apartment building about a road rage encounter, but wasn’t physically restrained, needed a Miranda warning beforehand.

•  On the other hand, the justices seemed more concerned about an intoxicated woman who was under police control for 2.5 hours, requested to leave multiple times and was subjected to questioning about her husband’s killing, all before receiving a Miranda warning.

Heard on appeal

•  The state’s Court of Appeals couldn’t understand why an Arapahoe County magistrate held a man in jail and subjected him to potential jail time, noting the divorce agreement he supposedly violated didn’t support the magistrate’s conclusions.

In federal news

•  U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Prose, who has spent little over a year on Colorado’s federal trial court, spoke to an audience of lawyers about her observations, including that some parties don’t actually want a speedy trial and that government defendants are sometimes providing inadequate arguments for why they should receive qualified immunity.

•  Prose, who formerly represented the Federal Bureau of Prisons against civil rights lawsuits from incarcerated plaintiffs, also spoke disapprovingly of defense counsel who submitted documentation to her without input from a self-represented plaintiff because he was incarcerated.

•  “I just want to let you know,” Prose said, “my expectation is you will find yourself en route to Cañon City to confer with that gentleman, by phone or in person or on a video call.”

•  A federal judge sent another set of claims to a jury trial over Denver’s police response to 2020 protesters.

On vacation

•  Court Crawl will be on vacation next week for the July Fourth holiday.