justice william hood
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Colorado justices weigh disclosure requirements for ballot initiative spending
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Members of the Colorado Supreme Court considered on Tuesday whether an organization that spent $4 million to advocate for ballot initiatives in the 2020 election was required to disclose its donors and spending. The organization, Unite for Colorado, advanced a straightforward argument: It spent 10% or less of its money on a single ballot measure.…
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Colorado justices field questions about values, disagreement at East High School
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Members of the Colorado Supreme Court fielded probing — and in some instances, tough — questions from East High School students on Thursday, including how the court balances existing law with “evolving social values.” “Often what we’re looking at is what the General Assembly has given to us in the form of a statute,” said…
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Colorado justices consider whether Denver police failed to respect suspect’s right to counsel
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Members of the Colorado Supreme Court considered on Thursday whether Denver detectives improperly restarted their interrogation of a murder suspect who had clearly invoked his constitutional right to an attorney. The district attorney’s office characterized the circumstances as “peculiar.” When police initially brought in Dakotah Lulei for questioning, he was not under arrest. After receiving…
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Colorado justices weigh potential race-based treatment for Arapahoe County murder defendant
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The Colorado Supreme Court considered a convicted defendant’s argument on Thursday that Arapahoe County prosecutors unconstitutionally singled out him and another Black teenager for murder prosecutions as adults, while offering lenient plea deals to the two non-Black co-defendants. Lloyd Chavez IV, a student at Cherokee Trail High School, died in May 2019 after four teenagers…
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Colorado justices concerned about blocking self-represented prisoners from pursuing claims due to lack of resources
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When Jamale D. Townsell filed a petition from prison seeking postconviction relief, he argued his trial lawyer was constitutionally ineffective for failing to properly investigate DNA evidence that would have called his responsibility for a 2013 bank robbery into question. The state’s Court of Appeals rejected his petition, reasoning Townsell had not shown how the…
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Colorado justices decline to expand judges’ authority to second-guess medical malpractice awards
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The Colorado Supreme Court rejected a hospital’s argument on Monday that judges have broad authority to recalculate a jury’s monetary award to plaintiffs injured by medical malpractice. Under state law, damages in medical malpractice lawsuits are generally capped at $1 million as part of a 1988 policy change intended to curb the costs of medicine…
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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 justices issue revised opinion in Robert Ray appeal, addressing life without parole sentence
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The Colorado Supreme Court issued a modified decision last week in the appeal of former death row inmate Robert Keith Ray, addressing and rejecting his arguments about the constitutionality of his life sentence. Arapahoe County jurors convicted Ray for the 2005 slayings of Javad Marshall-Fields and Vivian Wolfe. He received a death sentence and remained…
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Intervention v. punishment: Justice William Hood speaks about assistance to struggling lawyers
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A member of the Colorado Supreme Court spoke to attorneys on Thursday about the ways in which lawyers and judges have a duty to intervene when they notice their colleagues struggling to meet their professional obligations. “I tried to search back in my own memory banks. I can remember being a young lawyer and seeing…
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Colorado Supreme Court walks back decision allowing localities to broadly permit violations of noise limits
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The Colorado Supreme Court concluded on Monday that the state’s noise pollution law does not allow local governments to categorically permit any entity to host events on private property that exceed the statewide decibel limits. The question had divided the state’s Court of Appeals, with one appellate panel deciding localities do have broad permitting power…
