appeal
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10th Circuit gives Denver officer immunity for tasing surrendering, unarmed man
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A trial judge mischaracterized body-worn camera footage showing a Denver officer tasing a surrendering, unarmed man, the federal appeals court based in Colorado determined on Tuesday. Consequently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit granted the officer immunity in the excessive force lawsuit against him. The attorney for plaintiff Gregory Heard argued in…
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State Supreme Court says Weld County judge went too far in ordering public defender to hand over info
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The Colorado Supreme Court walked back a Weld County judge’s order for a public defender to turn over her unredacted case files at the request of the district attorney’s office, and instructed the judge to instead follow the established procedure for such requests. Jared Cortes-Gonzalez, who is pursuing a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel…
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Appeals court finds no racial discrimination despite excusal of three Black jurors in a row
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The state’s second-highest court has decided there was no intentional racial discrimination when an Arapahoe County prosecutor dismissed three Black people in a row from serving on a Black defendant’s jury. The appeal from Shawne Alexander Toney implicated the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark case of Batson v. Kentucky, which held that intentional racial discrimination in jury…
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Interstate vs. intrastate: State Supreme Court weighs meaning of overtime law for truckers
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Did Colorado’s wage regulations entitle four truck drivers to overtime pay because they worked almost exclusively within state lines? Or did Colorado actually mimic federal rules for interstate truckers and render the four men ineligible? Last week, JP Trucking, Inc., which is based in Gypsum, told the Colorado Supreme Court that the state’s minimum wage…
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Appeals court decision on Indian child case sets up split for Supreme Court
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There are now two competing interpretations from the state’s second-highest court for how judges have “reason to know” that a child in a custody proceeding fits the legal definition of an American Indian child, setting up the Colorado Supreme Court to have the final say on the matter. Last week, a three-judge panel for the…
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State Supreme Court accepts cases on Indian child protections, redacted video tape
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The Colorado Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases that implicate federal protections for the children of tribal nations and the ability of suspects to potentially make up self-serving statements to use for their benefit at trial. The latest announcements from the state’s highest court continue a recent trend of granting appeals involving the…
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Appeals court orders new trial after Mesa County judge let biased jurors serve
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Four jurors should not have served on a woman’s Mesa County trial, the state’s Court of Appeals determined, because they all volunteered they would believe police officers over the word of a non-officer simply due to their status as law enforcement. A three-judge panel for the appellate court reversed the felony assault conviction of Brenda…
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Appeals court reverses another Adams County conviction due to judge’s faulty analogy
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Another man convicted in Adams County will receive a new trial because the judge described reasonable doubt to jurors using an analogy very similar to one the Colorado Supreme Court recently deemed problematic. The Court of Appeals’ reversal of Darren Ross Hoffman’s attempted murder convictions is the second time in recent weeks that an Adams…
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Justices critical of hospital charging surgery patient $229,000 in medical bill
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Members of Colorado’s Supreme Court swung hard at the charging practices of hospitals on Tuesday, at times veering away from the narrow issues in the case before them and venturing into a broader critique of the American healthcare system. The appeal at hand centered on the state Court of Appeals’ interpretation of charges Lisa Melody…
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Appeals court says warrantless ‘ping’ of cell phone was permissible to find murder suspect
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The state’s second-highest court determined for the first time that police acted lawfully by obtaining a murder suspect’s real-time cell phone location from his wireless carrier. Courts around the country have reached different conclusions about whether cell site location information – or a “ping” – amounts to a search under the Fourth Amendment’s general prohibition on warrantless…
