The number of criminal jury trials dropped significantly in Colorado’s federal trial court, insurance cases made up half of all civil jury trials and self-represented litigants only filed one-quarter of all lawsuits last year.

Those were the trends highlighted in an annual report of the U.S. District Court’s workload presented last week by Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael E. Hegarty. Hegarty, the most senior magistrate judge on the court, compiled the 2023 statistics with the assistance of his law clerk, Marissa Joers.

“We maybe used to have 60, 70, 80 trials a year — maybe more,” Hegarty told an audience of lawyers last week at the Alfred A. Arraj U.S. Courthouse. Last year, the court saw 51 trials total: 33 civil and nine felony cases tried to a jury, plus nine bench trials before a judge in mostly civil matters.

In all, fewer than 1% of civil cases filed in the court end up seeing a trial, on average. However, Hegarty noted two recent trends: plaintiffs succeeding more often and jury awards getting larger, with the average 2023 award being $4.76 million.

Although the majority of appeals do not result in a decision being overturned, there is inconsistent information about how often reversals occur. Based on his sources, Hegarty said anywhere from 4.5% to to 25% of decisions are reversed in the geographical circuit Colorado sits in.

“The data is all over the place,” he acknowledged.

Criminal cases

During Hegarty’s presentation last year, he deemed it “remarkable” that federal prosecutors brought 22 felony criminal cases to trial and only secured convictions in 55% of them. In 2023, the government took nine cases to trial, but only experienced one acquittal — a rate more in line with the historical average.

In total, there were 2,792 criminal matters filed in the district court.

Each of the three types of judges has a role in criminal cases: active district judges, who are appointed by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate; senior district judges, who have transitioned from active status to a part-time role but still retain their lifetime appointments; and magistrate judges, who are hired by the district judges to handle a range of duties except felony criminal trials and sentencing.

Senior judges handled 25% of all trials last year in Colorado — higher than the 10-15% caseload senior judges carry across all federal judicial districts on average. Hegarty said many senior judges exercise their prerogative to not try criminal cases any longer.

The data showed that for non-criminal matters, litigants will get to trial fastest with a magistrate judge, second-fastest with a senior judge and the slowest with an active district judge. The major factor, Hegarty elaborated, are the constitutional guarantees provided to the criminally accused and the need for district judges to prioritize criminal matters for trial.

“It’s just the nature of the law,” he said.

Civil filings

Colorado’s district court saw 3,468 civil cases filed last year, placing it in the top one-third of all federal judicial districts. The average time to resolve a case was 8.3 months, although that number accounts for early dismissals and settlements.

Civil rights cases accounted for only three of the 33 civil jury trials last year, which is lower than average. Insurance disputes, in contrast, made up half of civil jury trials, and the highest number in at least 20 years.

“Unprecedented,” Hegarty said. “I think that’s maybe here to stay. We all know the East Troublesome and Marshall fires had a lot to do with that because those cases are overwhelming us.”

Among all jury trials, plaintiffs prevailed 58% of the time despite the historical trend in favor of defendants.

Work of magistrate judges

One component of magistrate judges’ jobs is to hold settlement conferences in civil cases. Last year, there were 141 such proceedings, with Hegarty himself facilitating more than half of those.

“Something I’ve been doing a lot of,” he said, “is going to the prisons and settling those inside the prison. Just this year alone, I’ve traveled to two prisoners outside of Colorado and probably 10 inside Colorado.”

Hegarty is set to retire in January. He said he anticipated the number of settlement conferences will likely fall as a result. Still, he pitched settlement conferences as a way to get to know the attorneys who practice in the court, allow clients to interact with a member of the judiciary and make him a better judge.

“But not everybody sees it that way,” Hegarty said. “It has not been to my general docket benefit to do those things because I’ve done 1,400 (settlement conferences total). Average of seven hours, maybe, or eight hours, maybe. Do the math. That’s 12,000 hours I haven’t worked on orders and things.”

Self-represented litigants and pro bono work

Unlike in past years, there were no cases initiated by self-represented, or “pro se,” litigants that ended in jury trials last year. In fact, the percentage of cases filed by pro se plaintiffs dropped from an average of 31% to just 26%.

Hegarty said he frequently moves to appoint pro bono attorneys for self-represented litigants through the court’s multiple programs that allow for varying degrees of representation.

“Some of you may be asking, why is the court wanting to help pro se people so much?” Hegarty said. “Wait until you have to preside over a discovery dispute with a pro se litigant. Or you’re on the bench and they’re talking by phone and they’re talking for half an hour. Granted, you don’t have to let them do that. But I do.”

U.S. Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter, who was in the audience, recalled handling a case involving a pro se plaintiff who was incarcerated in state prison and who alleged officials shot him at close range with a shotgun because, as a morbidly obese man, he refused to change into smaller sweatpants.

“It’s like, OK, this strikes me as he’s getting past the motion to dismiss, but he’s incarcerated in Sterling. There’s no way he can litigate this case,” Neureiter said. “But it’s not getting dismissed. So, it’s better to have a lawyer on the other side.”

“Pro bono is here, get used to it,” Hegarty added, noting that attorneys have expressed a desire to take over cases and gain courtroom experience if a pro se litigant ends up headed to trial.

The discussion was sponsored by the Faculty of Federal Advocates.