The Colorado Supreme Court rejected two separate appeals earlier this month from an incarcerated defendant seeking immediate release from prison, but concluded that two Chaffee County judges incorrectly required him to prepay filing fees for his cases.

David J. Gottorff is serving a prison sentence following his 2023 convictions in Ouray County. Although his challenge to his convictions is pending in the state’s Court of Appeals, Gottorff separately filed “habeas corpus” petitions with multiple courts seeking his release on various grounds.

After he filed one such petition in Chaffee County, where he is incarcerated, then-Chief Judge Patrick W. Murphy dismissed the case as groundless. Murphy also denied Gottorff’s request to avoid prepaying the $235 filing fee, which judges are instructed to do in “civil actions” from inmates that are “frivolous, groundless, or malicious, or fails to state a claim.”

Months later, Gottorff filed a different petition and once again requested a waiver of the filing fee. District Court Judge Dayna Vise similarly concluded the petition was groundless, citing Gottorff’s ongoing appeal. She also ordered him to pay $235 for filing the petition.

Gottorff appealed to the Supreme Court, where the Colorado Attorney General’s Office defended the dismissals of his two habeas petitions. However, the office acknowledged that both judges incorrectly ordered Gottorff to prepay the fees.

Under state law, judges must reject an incarcerated and indigent petitioner’s request to waive the fee for frivolous civil actions, but the law excludes habeas petitions from the category of civil actions.

In a short, unsigned opinion on June 1, the Supreme Court agreed with the state and with Gottorff about the fees.

“The habeas courts determined that Gottorff wasn’t eligible for waivers of the filing fees based on their findings that his petitions were groundless. We conclude, and defendants concede, that this was error,” the court wrote.

It otherwise upheld the dismissal of Gottorff’s petitions.

The cases are Gottorff v. Lengerich et al. and Gottorff. v. Coleman et al.