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

The state Supreme Court is in the process of releasing a large batch of opinions as it heads toward its summer recess in July, plus the newest justice authored her first opinion for the court.

Colorado Supreme Court news

•  The Supreme Court decided that creditors must strictly follow the provisions of Colorado law when suing to collect on a debt, which requires certain documentation showing ownership of the account.

•  Justice Susan Blanco authored the opinion, which was her first time writing for the court since her swearing-in three months ago. However, she previously authored a solo concurring opinion shortly after joining the court.

•  By 4-2, the Supreme Court concluded that a defendant can’t be tried again on offenses for which the jury clearly acquitted him while it remained deadlocked on other charges.

•  An anonymous school safety tip, combined with a Douglas County administrator’s verification of some details in the tip, provided reasonable grounds to search a student’s backpack for drugs.

•  By 5-2, the Supreme Court believed that parents who surrender their newborn under Colorado’s “safe haven” law are entitled to anonymity and confidentiality in the child’s subsequent adoption proceedings.

•  A teenage defendant in pretrial youth detention was properly transferred to the county jail once he turned 18.

•  Denver officers believed they saw strange arm movements in a vehicle as they were pulling it over, so they ordered the occupants out and searched the car. A judge blocked the evidence from the search because she didn’t find the officers’ description of the arm movements credible, but the Supreme Court reversed that decision.

•  A defendant’s challenge to a decision to revoke his parole must first be appealed internally with the parole board before a judge can review the decision, the Supreme Court concluded.

•  Colorado Springs may be sued for a collision at an intersection where one set of lights was operational and the perpendicular set of lights was dark.

•  The justices declined an invitation from an insurer and an appeals judge to loosen the requirements on insurance company defendants in uninsured motorist cases.

•  The Supreme Court decided that a judge properly reduced by 28% the number of days a father got to spend with his child without needing to find the child was endangered first. But the justices disagreed about whether reductions in parenting time can ever qualify as “restrictions” that trigger an endangerment finding.

•  Of note, in the concurring opinion by Justice Maria E. Berkenkotter, a Google Scholar search of case law suggests she is the second person to use the phrase “math isn’t mathing” in an opinion, and the first to use it in a non-quoted phrase:

•  The justices declined to expand their prohibition on insurers accessing additional medical information about a policyholder after it has already denied coverage, saying that the rule only applies to claims of bad-faith decision-making by insurance companies.

•  The court will evaluate whether Douglas County prosecutors could charge a woman in New York for conduct that seemingly occurred outside of Colorado’s borders.

Heard on appeal

•  The Court of Appeals found a seeming opening in a controversial Supreme Court decision from last year, and it concluded that a child’s legal representative may file a motion to terminate a parent’s legal rights.

•  The Court of Appeals reversed the convictions of two former Aurora paramedics who jurors found guilty of criminally negligent homicide for the death of Elijah McClain.

In federal news

•  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit rejected an appeal by Pueblo County sheriff’s employees who believed they could argue their own set of facts about why they were immune from being sued for a fatal shooting.

•  A federal judge granted the litigants’ agreed-upon injunction preventing Colorado from enforcing its restrictions on conversion therapy against a Colorado Springs counselor whose lawsuit recently came back from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Immigration detention update

•  Readers are likely aware that Colorado’s federal district court is facing a flood of “habeas corpus” petitions from those in immigration detention. The most common allegation is that the government is improperly denying bond hearings to people who are eligible by law. Colorado’s judges, like the vast majority of their peers nationwide, have agreed with that argument.

•  However, there are interesting developments occurring across these cases. Judge Nina Y. Wang ordered the government to explain why she should not hold it in contempt for deporting a petitioner to Nigeria in violation of her order to keep him in the country while his habeas case proceeded.

•  U.S. Magistrate Judge Kathryn Starnella allowed the government to deport a man to the Congo, noting that she was unaware of any “principle of law” that would prevent the U.S. from sending someone into an Ebola outbreak. She suggested that the government “ought to consider whether they will face obstacles” in doing so.

Vacancies and appointments

•  The lieutenant governor, acting as governor, appointed prosecutor and former Weld County District Court Judge Meghan P. Saleebey to succeed retiring District Court Judge Sarah E. Stout in the 17th Judicial District (Adams and Broomfield counties).

•  The lieutenant governor also selected Magistrate Matthew W.E. Bradley to fill a newly created seat on the 13th Judicial District Court (Logan, Morgan, Sedgwick, Phillips, Washington, Yuma and Kit Carson counties).

•  The governor appointed public defender Lochlin I.S. Rosen to fill a new seat on the 17th Judicial District Court.

•  Applications are due by July 24 to succeed retiring District Court Judge Michael P. McHenry in the Fourth Judicial District (El Paso and Teller counties).

•  Applications are due by June 12 to succeed retiring Judge Arturo G. Hernandez on the 17th Judicial District Court. Hernandez, like Stout, is departing after fewer than three years on the bench.

•  Applications are due by June 17 to succeed incoming District Court Judge Deni E. Eiring in her current role as a part-time Cheyenne County Court judge.