justice richard gabriel
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Boulder police overreached in interrogating suspect, Colorado Supreme Court finds
Two Boulder detectives violated a man’s constitutional rights by interrogating him at his home using a court order that solely authorized the collection of his DNA evidence, the Colorado Supreme Court concluded on Tuesday. The ruling curtailed the ability of police to use a narrow category of court orders, issued without probable cause, to obtain…
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Property owners may access evidence before eminent domain decisions, Colorado justices conclude
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that a Douglas County judge incorrectly believed he lacked the authority to allow a property owner to pursue evidence challenging a government entity’s legal right to take its property through eminent domain. In a June 23 opinion, Justice Susan Blanco wrote that the law does not explicitly provide…
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Teen defendant properly transferred from youth detention to jail, Colorado justices conclude
Colorado law required the transfer of a teenage murder suspect from youth detention to the county jail when he turned 18, the state Supreme Court ruled last week. Prosecutors have accused Issac James Lawrence of killing a younger boy and attempting to kill his mother in Durango. Lawrence is being tried as an adult but was initially…
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Safe2Tell tip, corroborated details provided grounds to search backpack, Colorado justices rule
The Colorado Supreme Court decided this month that a tip submitted through the state’s confidential school safety system, plus a Douglas County administrator’s corroboration of some details, provided reasonable suspicion to search a student’s backpack for drugs. Someone submitted a tip through Safe2Tell, Colorado’s school safety reporting system, alleging a Chaparral High School student was smoking…
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Appeals court finds opening in Colorado Supreme Court’s framework for child neglect cases
Colorado’s second-highest court squeezed through an opening last week in a controversial state Supreme Court decision from 2025, concluding that the justices had not prohibited a child’s legal representative from being the one to request termination of parental rights in child welfare cases. Whether the government alone is empowered to pursue child neglect cases became…
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Colorado Springs may be sued for faulty intersection, state Supreme Court rules
The Colorado Supreme Court decided last month that Colorado Springs can be sued over a collision that occurred as a result of traffic lights that were functioning normally in one direction, but were inoperative in the perpendicular direction. The question for the Supreme Court was whether the traffic arrangement provided “conflicting” signals to plaintiff Bernard…
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Internal appeals of parole revocation must come before judicial review, Colorado justices conclude
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled last month that criminal defendants whose parole is revoked must appeal the decision internally to the state’s parole board before seeking review by a judge. The process for returning someone to incarceration for violating the conditions of their parole first entails a hearing by one member of the Colorado State…
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Colorado legislature overrules 2 state Supreme Court decisions about child neglect, visitation
Colorado lawmakers have overruled a recent pair of state Supreme Court decisions, adopting the dissenting justices’ points of view in cases involving grandparent visitation rights and the ability of children to oppose a county’s decision to withdraw a neglect case. The recently enacted legislation addressed two split decisions that the Supreme Court released within days…
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Colorado justices acknowledge judge’s misunderstanding of law in eminent domain case
Members of the Colorado Supreme Court appeared to agree on Tuesday that a Douglas County judge incorrectly believed he lacked the authority to allow a property owner to pursue evidence challenging a government entity’s legal right to take the property through eminent domain. But during oral arguments, multiple justices bristled when an attorney for the…
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Colorado justices skeptical of defendant’s challenge to flawed jury instruction
Members of the Colorado Supreme Court appeared willing to uphold a defendant’s vehicular eluding conviction on Tuesday, suggesting that an incorrectly worded jury instruction was not an obvious and harmful error in light of the defense’s choice not to dispute the evidence. A Denver jury convicted Jeffery Sloan of killing Yasir Hasan and Mark Karla by running…