New faces, new initiatives and a new judicial discipline process were among the developments in the third branch of government this year. Although much of the public’s focus was on the battle for the White House and Congress, several stories implicating the courts will have reverberations for years to come.

Here is a look at 2024’s top judicial news.

New chief justice

The Colorado Supreme Court had its first opportunity to cycle through a new system it implemented in 2020. Up to that point, the chief justice had typically been someone whose tenure on the court was nearing its end. But because all seven members, beginning in 2021, were roughly the same age, the court opted for a rotational process for filling the top slot. Justice Brian D. Boatright became the first chief in 2021 using the method, with Justice Monica M. Márquez waiting on deck as his successor.

This summer, the two swapped positions, making Márquez the first Latina to head the state’s 4,000-person judicial branch. She will remain the chief justice for the next three years, with the court expecting to designate her successor roughly 24 months from now.

Federal slots filled

For the first time in a long time, there are no more current or announced vacancies on Colorado’s U.S. District Court or the Denver-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. That is significant because the four-year period of the Biden administration saw five of the seven active district court judgeships turn over, as well as six of the nine magistrate judge seats.

With an incoming Republican president and Republican-controlled U.S. Senate, there is a possibility some judges will choose to retire, especially on the 10th Circuit. But for now, the courts headquartered in Colorado are fully staffed, unlike some of their counterparts across the country.

Trump disqualification case fizzles

Last year, the Colorado Supreme Court made international news when it found then-candidate Donald Trump was constitutionally disqualified from appearing on the state’s primary ballot because he engaged in insurrection. The appeal quickly shot up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which unanimously overturned the Colorado decision in March.

While the case may be a blip in legal history, it clearly had an outsize impact on the people who participated in it. Departing from their usual code of silence about the cases they decide, two of the justices who deemed Trump ineligible spoke out in recent months about the toll the litigation took on them. Justice Melissa Hart disclosed at a judicial conference in September that her Denver home was “swatted” after the decision. And shortly after Election Day, Chief Justice Monica M. Márquez revealed she became physically sick before casting her vote, knowing that she, her family and her coworkers could face retaliation.

Send in the LLPs

In June, Colorado became the latest state to implement a new legal licensure allowing non-attorneys to practice law to a limited extent. Called licensed legal paraprofessionals (LLPs), the first class consisted of paralegals who sought to represent clients on their own or in tandem with lawyers in family law cases. Among other goals, the LLP program was designed to give clients a more affordable option for divorce, custody and other matters.

Virtual court disruptors

This year, the state judiciary experienced disruptions to its proceedings that are streamed virtually. Malicious actors in multiple jurisdictions have managed to interrupt court hearings with racial slurs, pornography and other disturbing content. The judicial branch is planning to acquire a streaming platform that is more manageable than the current system, called Webex.

The virtual hijackings “caused a lot of trauma to our litigants, our court staff, our judicial officers,” said Chief Justice Monica M. Márquez.

Supreme Court asks lawmakers to resolve racial bias question

For nearly two years, a proposal has sat on the Supreme Court justices’ desks that is intended to curtail the number of jurors of color who are dismissed from criminal trials for reasons that are not explicitly racial, yet nonetheless are correlated to their race. The court indicated it would wait to act on the rule change until it decided a handful of cases that also implicated when prosecutors may dismiss jurors of color and for what reasons.

Those decisions were handed down this year, and they did not bode well for the rule change. Three justices asked the legislature to abolish the ability of lawyers to remove jurors without cause — a practice that enables race-based and potentially race-based dismissals in the first place. However, critics argued lawmakers are unlikely to do so, and the Supreme Court could simply pass the rule change to address racial bias in jury selection.

Dominion defamation suits

In the weeks after the 2020 election, a conservative Colorado podcaster started a rumor that spread like wildfire. Allegedly, he heard an executive of Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems say on an “antifa” conference call that the executive had personally rigged the election against Donald Trump. In the four years since, there has been little proof of those allegations, and 2024 saw multiple lawsuits move forward against parties who amplified the rumor.

Across Colorado courts, plaintiff Eric Coomer received favorable rulings in his defamation suits against the Trump campaign, Rudy Giuliani, an Oklahoma podcaster, Trump backer Mike Lindell and others.

SCOTUS stalking decision circles back to Colorado

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision in a case that originated from Arapahoe County, ruling that state prosecutors need to show an alleged stalker disregarded the threatening nature of his statements. The upshot was to make it more difficult to convict stalkers for their expression-based conduct.

The state’s Court of Appeals applied that directive for the first time this year, overturning two defendants’ stalking convictions in which juries had only evaluated whether the conduct objectively amounted to stalking, rather than the defendants’ intent.

Changes to judicial discipline

This November, Colorado voters overwhelmingly enacted a constitutional amendment that alters how the system of disciplining state judges operates. Generally, the changes will lessen the control the Supreme Court holds over the process and make information publicly available at an earlier stage in disciplinary proceedings. The judicial discipline commission also received a new director, Anne Mangiardi, who has promised to begin implementing the voter-approved changes.