judge lino lipinsky
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Colorado justices to hear cases on grandparent visitation, lawyers’ neglect in appealing on time
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The Colorado Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will decide whether two grandparents are entitled to seek visitation of their grandchildren following their adoption by the other set of grandparents, and also how strictly to hold lawyers to the deadline for filing appeals. At least three of the court’s seven members must agree to…
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Appeals court warns lawyers, litigants: You will get in trouble for citing AI-invented cases
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Colorado’s second-highest court put attorneys and litigants on notice for the first time on Thursday that they will face consequences if they use artificial intelligence to submit filings with fake citations. A three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals declined to sanction a self-represented plaintiff after he acknowledged and apologized for his mistake. At the…
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Colorado justices rule plaintiffs can use open records law for evidence when suing government
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The Colorado Supreme Court decided on Monday that nothing in the state’s open records law prevents a person from seeking documents from public entities at the same time they are suing the government in court. Although the justices agreed that a plaintiff properly used the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) to seek a tape recording…
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School administrators’ discipline records not subject to disclosure, appeals court rules
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Disciplinary records for public school administrators are not subject to disclosure thanks to a law shielding materials used in preparing educator evaluations, Colorado’s second-highest court ruled on Thursday. A three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals noted administrators’ disciplinary histories are factors in their evaluations, thereby landing within an exception to the state’s open records…
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Colorado justices weigh unique defense to murder for non-triggermen
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Some members of the Colorado Supreme Court on Wednesday signaled their agreement with the notion that a defendant need not admit to committing an underlying offense in order to assert a defense to the more serious crime of felony murder. Felony murder is a unique offense, in which a defendant is guilty if he participates in…
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Appeals court rejects notion that coroners’ conclusions preempt other evidence of murder
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Colorado’s second-highest court ruled last week that an “undetermined” cause of death from a county coroner does not preclude prosecutors from presenting their own evidence that the death was actually a homicide. In the case before the Court of Appeals, Denver jurors convicted Robert W. Feldman in 2022 of murdering his wife, Stacy Feldman. He is…
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SCOTUS gun rights decision does not affect man’s firearm conviction, appeals court rules
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Colorado’s second-highest court declined to consider last week whether a man was convicted of a firearm offense under an unconstitutional law, noting the Colorado Supreme Court recently confirmed that changes in legal interpretation do not affect certain cases on appeal. A Pueblo County jury convicted Thomas Gene Rael in spring 2022 of being a prior…
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Colorado justices cautious of letting litigants make open records requests while suing governments
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Members of the Colorado Supreme Court grappled on Tuesday with two competing principles: honoring public access to government records, on the one hand, while preventing litigants from deluging public bodies with open records requests at the same time they are suing them. Previously, the state’s second-highest court ruled that plaintiffs are not forbidden from using…
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Appeals court finds numerous errors in 2 Mesa, El Paso County trials but upholds convictions
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Colorado’s second-highest court determined last week that numerous errors, including prosecutorial misconduct, pervaded a pair of criminal trials, but the missteps were not severe enough to warrant reversal of the defendants’ convictions. In El Paso County, jurors convicted Daniel Caleb Schwenk of assault and menacing, but could not reach consensus on an attempted murder charge.…