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

The state Supreme Court enacted a new set of rules for pursuing disability accommodations on the bar exam, plus the new committee charged with crafting judicial discipline rules has begun its work.

New rules

•  The Colorado Supreme Court heard in December from law students and others that the process for requesting disability accommodations on the bar exam was too hostile, and a set of proposed rules was focused too heavily on having students prove their disabilities to test administrators. But the rules as adopted earlier this month are largely identical to the draft rules, leading to concerns that the Supreme Court is maneuvering around the lower threshold for accommodations lawmakers enacted just last year.

•  “This rule appears to be adding hurdles to a disabled bar applicant taking the bar exam when the intent of the bill was to eliminate hurdles for disabled applicants,” said Sen. Dylan Roberts, D-Summit County, who was one of the sponsors of the related state law.

In other Supreme Court news

•  The justices agreed a public censure with a medical evaluation amounted to a justified punishment for a lawyer who bullied school employees in front of his teenage client.

•  The Supreme Court has agreed to review a Court of Appeals decision that, according to the construction industry, injects substantial uncertainty into contracting for public works projects.

Heard on appeal

•  The Court of Appeals dismissed a defamation lawsuit against former Gov. Bill Ritter, who authored a 2022 opinion article urging voters to reject the judicial retention advocacy of a man convicted for killing his wife.

•  The Court of Appeals clarified that corporations can be held liable for a “felonious killing,” meaning that if they commit murder or manslaughter there is no cap on how much they can be ordered to pay in a lawsuit.

•  A Denver prosecutor told the jury a fact not in evidence and suggested they could infer the worst about the defendant’s behavior because he exercised his constitutional right not to testify. The Court of Appeals deemed it misconduct, but concluded it didn’t affect the verdict.

In federal news

•  The case of detained immigration advocate Jeanette Vizguerra is on hold after her lawyers told a judge on Friday that they intend to add a claim of a First Amendment violation to her habeas corpus petition.

•  A federal judge stood by his previous decision to reject a voting rights challenge to Colorado Springs’ municipal election schedule, but he softened his earlier criticism of the plaintiffs’ attorneys.

•  A judge dismissed the federal claims over a detained man’s suicide in a La Junta holding cell, but suggested certain state law claims may be viable instead.

•  A federal judge concluded multiple industry associations hadn’t shown why any of their members would necessarily suffer an injury from a pair of energy efficiency initiatives designed to reduce emissions from large buildings.

Judicial discipline committee up and running

•  When Colorado voters enacted Amendment H in November, they created a new rule-making committee for the state’s judicial discipline system. The committee is in the process of creating emergency rules and its chair, retired U.S. Magistrate Judge Kristen L. Mix, spoke to Colorado Politics about what people can expect in the coming weeks.

Miscellaneous proceedings

•  The governor has signed Senate Bill 24, the judicial branch’s legislative priority that will add 15 new trial judgeships across the state this year and next year.

•  The Colorado Bar Association’s executive council issued a statement last week reiterating its support for the rule of law, judicial independence, the right to counsel and the separation of powers. The organizations co-signing the statement included:

Arapahoe County Bar Association

Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Colorado

Boulder County Bar Association

Colorado Disability Bar Association

Colorado Hispanic Bar Association

Colorado LGBTQ+ Bar Association 

Colorado Women’s Bar Association

Continental Divide Bar Association

Denver Bar Association

Douglas-Elbert County Bar Association

First Judicial District Bar Association

Larimer County Bar Association

Ninth Judicial District Bar Association

Sam Cary Bar Association

South Asian Bar Association of Colorado

•  Earlier this month, U.S. District Court Judge Daniel D. Domenico spoke at the University of Virginia, where he received his law degree. The event was sponsored by the school’s Federalist Society, which has been a motivating force behind the conservative legal movement for decades.

•  Lawyers for a man convicted of murder have argued recent DNA testing may exonerate him — a revelation that came to light as a result of a still-unfolding scandal involving former state DNA scientist Yvonne “Missy” Woods.

•  The city of Aurora is considering a request to delay the shift of domestic violence prosecutions from municipal court to county court, potentially pushing the deadline until at least next year.

•  The Denver Gazette has published an investigative series about the lack of transparency around “private judges” who make decisions largely in domestic relations cases across Colorado.