justice melissa hart
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Colorado Supreme Court to hear oral arguments, one justice is gone | COURT CRAWL
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Welcome to Court Crawl, Colorado Politics’ roundup of news from the third branch of government. The Colorado Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in eight cases this week, plus one of its members is on an unexplained and open-ended leave of absence from the court. Oral arguments • Beginning on Tuesday morning, here is the scheduled…
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Justice Melissa Hart on unexplained ‘leave of absence’ from Colorado Supreme Court
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Justice Melissa Hart is on a leave of absence from the Colorado Supreme Court — with no end date and no general explanation why. A spokesperson for the Colorado Judicial Department confirmed to Colorado Politics that Hart has been on a “temporary personal leave of absence” since Oct. 28. “We are waiting for information from…
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Colorado justices deliver favorable ruling for organizations raising open meetings violations
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The Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that organizations are entitled to the same recovery of their costs as individuals when they successfully pursue a public entity’s violation of the state’s open meetings law. The Colorado Open Meetings Law permits “any person” to challenge a violation of the law. At the same time, it grants…
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Colorado’s chief justice describes threats, invasions of privacy after Trump disqualification decision
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Chief Justice Monica M. Márquez spoke out on Thursday about the threats and invasions of privacy members of the Colorado Supreme Court and their families endured after a high-profile 2023 decision to disqualify now-President Donald Trump from the state’s ballot. “No government official — I don’t care if you’re a legislator, an executive branch official…
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Colorado justices toy with test for reviewing extreme sentences for unconstitutionality
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The Colorado Supreme Court heard arguments on Monday about whether a woman’s 29-year prison sentence for causing a fatal drunk driving accident was constitutionally excessive, but also considered tinkering with the procedure for how judges approach claims of “gross disproportionality” in sentencing. The Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment means sentences cannot be…
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Colorado human services agency faces buzzsaw at state Supreme Court as justices critique non-disclosure argument
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Several members of the Colorado Supreme Court pushed back on Monday against the state’s position that it could not disclose the number of child abuse reports at individual group living facilities because doing so would improperly reveal a person’s address — even though such addresses are already in the public domain. The Colorado Department of…
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Colorado justices weigh ‘cascade of errors’ in Arapahoe County murder trial
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There was no dispute that Terrence G. Davis died by gunshot in an Aurora alleyway in 2017. At the trial of Davis’ suspected killer, jurors reached two conclusions. First, they believed he was guilty of second-degree murder for causing Davis’ death. Second, they were asked whether the defendant used a gun. No, said the jury, he…
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‘Everything’s fair game’: Justice Melissa Hart speaks about potential family law initiatives
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‘We are really looking actively at what other states are doing,’ says Hart
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Colorado Supreme Court term in review: Restitution, racial bias, rescinded opinion and more
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The Colorado Supreme Court’s most visible decision of its recently concluded term may actually be the one it made five years ago. In 2020, with the retirement of then-Chief Justice Nathan B. Coats, the court’s other members decided to switch to a rotational method of filling the seat, with the judicial branch’s top job term-limited…
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Federal judge ‘reluctantly’ dismisses claim by Club Q survivors against property owners
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A federal judge agreed last week that a recent change to Colorado law barred him from allowing the survivors of an LGBTQ nightclub shooting to hold the property owners liable for safety deficiencies that allegedly contributed to the massacre. At the same time, U.S. District Court Senior Judge William J. Martínez slammed the legislature’s 2022 amendment…
