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

The Colorado Supreme Court will hear its first set of oral arguments this week for the 2024-2025 term, plus one federal judge recently spoke about constitutional issues and other trends in the judiciary.

Oral argument calendar

•  On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hold arguments in three cases, plus a hearing about proposed rule changes:

People v. Martinez: Should a man receive a new trial for murder because the judge seemingly forgot to qualify a key witness as an expert before he testified to the defendant’s sanity?

Archuleta v. Roane: Can litigants who are suing the government use Colorado’s open records law to obtain evidence in lieu of the civil discovery process?

The Gazette et al. v. Bourgerie: Is The Gazette (Colorado Politics’ sibling publication) entitled to data under the open records law about police officers who are certified and decertified in the state?

Magistrate rules: The justices will take comments about a proposal to revamp the rules governing magistrates and how their decisions are appealed.

Heard on appeal

•  The Supreme Court agreed to hear four cases about 1.) the standard for appointing defense counsel in postconviction proceedings alleging DNA exoneration, 2.) the evidence prosecutors must provide to prove certain financial crimes, 3.) how judges should review juries’ medical negligence awards and 4.) the degree of protection that negative online reviews have from defamation lawsuits.

•  Law firms don’t run afoul of the professional rules by prohibiting lawyers from recruiting their coworkers to leave with them, the state’s Court of Appeals ruled.

Ethics, threats and religion

•  Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael E. Hegarty spoke at Colorado Christian University for Constitution Day, primarily to discuss the types of constitutional rights cases federal judges routinely hear. However, Hegarty also touched on the role of religion in the courtroom, threats to judges and judicial ethics.

•  “In my world, you don’t even want the appearance of impropriety. You want to be above reproach. And so, we actually have to change our lives quite a bit when we take the bench,” he said.

•  Hegarty declined to comment on the wisdom of imposing an enforceable ethics code on the U.S. Supreme Court, but said he believed that judges shouldn’t engage in political activity other than voting.

In federal news

•  A federal judge once again declined to dismiss the charges against a West African man in an unusual proceeding implicating a U.S. law criminalizing torture committed in other countries.

•  A judge voiced her agitation with a pair of civil rights lawyers who are “enabling and facilitating” their client’s disobedience of a directive to hand over evidence.

•  While she did not approve of how Colorado Springs police handled the situation, a federal judge concluded two officers had probable cause to arrest an alleged victim of domestic violence because the woman had herself committed an offense.

•  A judge is weighing whether to overturn the federal authorization for Denver Water to expand its Boulder County reservoir, even as construction is ongoing.

•  Another lawsuit over Denver’s police response to 2020 protests is heading to a jury trial, this time with 14 plaintiffs who allege their First and Fourth amendment rights were violated.

Miscellaneous proceedings

•  9News reported Fremont County commissioners are seeking to recover the taxpayer money District Attorney Linda Stanley used to defend herself in disciplinary proceedings that recently resulted in her disbarment.

•  The Denver Gazette interviewed a court-appointed psychologist about the role that sanity evaluations play in criminal cases, such as the current one against the accused shooter of 10 victims at a Boulder King Soopers.