judge ted tow
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Colorado Supreme Court takes up El Paso County criminal case
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The Colorado Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will hear an appeal out of El Paso County questioning how criminal defendants can challenge the validity of an order to pay restitution to their victims, if the order occurs beyond the legal deadline. At least three of the court’s seven members must agree to review…
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Appeals court says tenants must strictly comply with law to sue landlords over hazardous conditions
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Strict compliance with the law is necessary if tenants, who typically lack legal representation, wish to sue landlords for shoddy living conditions, Colorado’s second-highest court ruled last week. In a 2-1 decision, a three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals agreed a Denver man could not hold his landlord liable for an uninhabitable apartment because…
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Denver judge wrongly jailed man over child support payments, appeals court finds
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A Denver judge jailed a man for 12 days over his failure to make child support payments, but she disregarded the procedural requirements and safeguards for holding someone in contempt, the state’s Court of Appeals determined. District Court Judge Nikea T. Bland ordered Rory Fitzgerald Carpenter to jail in January 2022 after a hearing in…
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CSU may be sued for refunds following COVID-19 campus closure, appeals court rules
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Colorado’s second-highest court ruled last week that a class action lawsuit against Colorado State University may proceed, based on allegations the institution unjustly enriched itself by suspending in-person activities at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic without refunding tuition or student fees. A three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals agreed, by 2-1, it was…
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Colorado appeals court, 2-1, reverses sex assault convictions due to testimony about victim’s reaction
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A Boulder County judge was wrong to permit an alleged victim of sex assault and three of her friends or coworkers to testify about how she changed after the disputed rape, Colorado’s second-highest court ruled last month in reversing the defendant’s convictions. By 2-1, a three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals concluded the victim’s…
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Gilpin County judge who kicked out defendant’s family committed public trial violation, court finds
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A Gilpin County judge who ejected the defendant’s family and other observers from his courtroom and told them to watch the livestream from elsewhere in the courthouse violated the defendant’s constitutional right to a public trial, Colorado’s second-highest court ruled last week. Michelle Re Nae Bialas was on trial for the second time when some…
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Colorado Supreme Court to decide whether life without parole for non-triggerman is constitutional
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The Colorado Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will consider whether it is unconstitutional for a defendant to serve a sentence of life without parole for murder when he was not the one who caused the victim’s death. The case out of El Paso County implicates Colorado’s “felony murder” law, which, until recently, provided…
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‘The law is the law’: Conifer students experience real appellate cases, quiz judges
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For a select group of attorneys who argued their cases before Colorado’s Court of Appeals on Tuesday, the experience was different in two key ways: First, they traded the ornate courtrooms of downtown Denver for the picturesque foothills 30 miles to the west. Second, the most pointed questioning did not necessarily come from the court.…
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Oral arguments, caseloads and bad lawyering: Appellate judges and justices provide peek behind judicial curtain
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Nearly all members of the Colorado Supreme Court and half of the judges on the Court of Appeals convened with attorneys on Friday to give a behind-the-scenes tour of the inner workings of the judiciary, and to voice concern about the escalating number of issues they are being asked to decide in appeals. The topics…
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Property rights v. public access: Colorado Supreme Court wades into messy water controversy
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Members of the Colorado Supreme Court heard on Tuesday that they should not upend 150 years of property rights, encourage trespassing and open the floodgates to lawsuits challenging, segment by segment, whether people can wade and fish in waterways that cut across private land. On the other hand, the justices also heard that Colorado stands…