judge john daniel dailey
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Colorado Supreme Court ponders when negative online reviews are insulated from lawsuits
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Members of the Colorado Supreme Court considered last week whether a person’s vindictive motivations in posting a negative online review can nevertheless relate to a matter of public interest, and potentially shield the commentary from a defamation lawsuit. For the first time, the state’s highest court examined Colorado’s 2019 “anti-SLAPP” law, which stands for “strategic…
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Colorado justices reverse murder conviction for police interrogation lacking Miranda warning
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A woman convicted of murdering her husband in a Moffat County motel room will receive a new trial after the Colorado Supreme Court concluded on Monday that police failed to provide a Miranda warning before interrogating her. Rachel Ann Niemeyer and Michael Adam Freese were intoxicated and handling a rifle when the gun went off and…
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Colorado Supreme Court, 5-2, says no new trial following ‘overt, in-court racism’
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The Colorado Supreme Court concluded on Monday that a Black defendant did not deserve a new trial after one juror disclosed he moved to the overwhelmingly White jurisdiction because he “didn’t want diversity,” and the trial judge refused to dismiss him for bias. By 5-2, the court believed Reginald Keith Clark had not shown the…
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Colorado justices wrestle with whether woman’s 2.5 hours under police supervision was ‘custody’
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Members of the Colorado Supreme Court wrestled last month with a question that previously divided the state’s second-highest court: Did Craig law enforcement effectively place a heavily intoxicated woman in custody and interrogate her for the murder of her husband without providing the necessary Miranda warning? The answer could implicate the breadth of protection afforded…
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Colorado justices overrule appeals court’s incorrect standard for mid-case appeals
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The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday overruled a 7-year-old decision of the state’s second-highest court after a plaintiff, the defendants and even one of the judges who participated in the decision called it incorrect. Typically, appellate courts can only review final judgments that address all of the claims in a civil case. However, Colorado’s procedural…
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Colorado justices spar over need for new trial due to biased judge
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When public defender Amanda C. Hopkins appeared in Saguache County District Court on April 17, 2018, her client failed to show up. The hearing was over in a matter of minutes. Records at the time did not document her brief substitution for the regular public defender assigned to the case. Three months later, Hopkins became…
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Boulder County judge wasn’t obligated to bail out self-represented defendant, appeals court rules
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Colorado’s second-highest court concluded last month that a criminal defendant in Boulder County was not unfairly forced to choose between his rights to a speedy trial and to an attorney, and, when he elected to go without an attorney, the trial judge was not obligated to save him from his own poor performance. Jurors convicted Timothy…
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Appeals court sides with Lakewood in Colorado Christian University’s zoning discrimination case
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Even though a recently enacted zoning ordinance only applies to housing operated by Colorado Christian University, the state’s second-highest court last month concluded the city of Lakewood did not unconstitutionally discriminate against the school by forcing it to stop leasing to students in a residential neighborhood next to campus. CCU sued the city over an…
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Colorado justices struggle with juror in Black defendant’s trial who ‘didn’t want diversity’
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Members of the Colorado Supreme Court this week struggled with the fate of a Black defendant’s convictions in an overwhelmingly White jurisdiction, after a trial judge refused to dismiss a juror who admitted he “didn’t want diversity.” Although the justices have previously addressed cases involving people of color who were removed from juries because of…
