carlos samour
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‘This is how innocent people are convicted,’ defendant alleges wrongful conviction to Supreme Court
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When police arrested Nora Hilda Rios-Vargas for the burglary of a Weld County trailer home where someone had stolen $15,000 in jewelry and $3,000 in coins, there was only one definitive piece of evidence linking her to the crime scene: shards of a bloody latex glove with her DNA on it. At the same time,…
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State Supreme Court wades into intra-judicial conflict over rights of employees
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Colorado’s Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether judges have the power to review personnel decisions involving judicial employees, a rare case in which different parts of the judicial branch are arguing for opposite interpretations of existing rules. During oral arguments on Wednesday, the state’s justices heard that judicial employees are legally different from…
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State Supreme Court to examine foreclosure timeline, narrowly turns down DUI appeals
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The Colorado Supreme Court has agreed to review a lower court’s ruling that banks and mortgage lenders argue gives an improper incentive to rapidly foreclose on certain homeowners. On Monday, the justices announced they will hear the case of U.S. Bank National Association v. Silvernagel, which centers on Colorado’s six-year statute of limitations for lenders to foreclose…
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Claims of tribal heritage not enough to trigger ‘Indian child’ protections, state justices say
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Family members’ assertions that a child has American Indian heritage are insufficient to trigger the longstanding federal protections for tribal children in welfare proceedings, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Monday. The justices resolved an issue that has split the state’s Court of Appeals and focused attention on a key section of the Indian Child…
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Judicial committee secretly debates proposal to address racial bias in jury selection
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A committee of the Colorado Supreme Court met behind closed doors on Friday to discuss two proposals for curtailing the exclusion of people of color from juries based on explicit or implicit racial bias. The renewed effort comes months after legislation to accomplish the same goal died in the legislature in the wake of opposition…
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Municipalities, state agencies warn Supreme Court against opening floodgates to lawsuits
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Nearly all of the state’s municipalities and a handful of state agencies are pleading with the Colorado Supreme Court to reverse a lower court’s ruling that eliminated the strict 28-day deadline for challenging decisions of government bodies. Liquor license denials, local governments’ discipline of personnel, and the Department of Corrections’ decisions about inmates are some…
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State Supreme Court examines whether exclusion of wife from courtroom violated defendants’ rights
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Christopher Nicholas Cruse and Terrel Shameek Turner stood trial together in Arapahoe County in 2017 for the robbery of a marijuana dispensary where Cruse worked. On the third morning of the jury trial, the prosecution informed the trial judge that Cruse’s wife was arrested the prior day for “an encounter” in the hallway with one…
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State Supreme Court wipes away $1.8 million in interest payments by Ford after losing lawsuit
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When someone files a personal injury lawsuit in Colorado and wins at trial, the plaintiff may receive not only monetary damages, but interest on that amount starting from the date of the injury. But what happens when the defendant appeals the judgment, goes all the way to the Supreme Court, and wins a new trial…
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Justices agree with state, inmate on parole eligibility calculation
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The state’s Supreme Court justices agreed with both the Colorado Department of Corrections and inmate Nathanael E. Owens on Tuesday that the government should calculate Owens’ earliest parole date using a “hybrid” method accounting for the varying eligibility protocols in his three consecutive sentences. The justices cleared up in Owens’ appeal any lingering confusion from…
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State Supreme Court delivers partial win for truckers in overtime pay case
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The state Supreme Court delivered a mixed ruling to four truck drivers on Monday, finding that two of them qualified for overtime pay under state wage rules because they never left Colorado and, therefore, were not interstate drivers. The remaining two, however, fell under an exemption to the rules that barred them from receiving overtime…
