Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in Colorado Supreme Court
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This case involves the interpretation of a provision in the Colorado Sex Offender Lifetime Supervision Act (SOLSA) that dictates the factors parole boards must consider when deciding whether to release a convicted sex offender on parole. The Supreme Court of Colorado was asked by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals to determine whether SOLSA requires, permits, or prohibits parole boards from considering maturity and rehabilitation of an offender.The case arose from the sentencing of Omar Ricardo Godinez, who was convicted of several serious offenses committed when he was fifteen years old. Godinez argued that SOLSA violated the Eighth Amendment as applied to him, claiming that the Act does not allow parole boards to consider an offender's maturity and rehabilitation. This, he contended, renders the Act unconstitutional in light of the Supreme Court's decision in Graham v. Florida, which mandates that young offenders must be given "some meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation."The Supreme Court of Colorado concluded that although SOLSA does not expressly require parole boards to consider an offender's maturity, it does not prevent them from doing so. Hence, SOLSA permits consideration of maturity. As for rehabilitation, the Court held that it is a necessary part of the factors the parole board is required to consider under SOLSA. Thus, the Court concluded that SOLSA requires consideration of rehabilitation. Therefore, the Court held that SOLSA permits consideration of maturity and requires consideration of rehabilitation. View "Godinez v. Williams" on Justia Law

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In a case brought by a group of Colorado electors, the Supreme Court of the State of Colorado considered whether former President Donald J. Trump could appear on the Colorado Republican presidential primary ballot. The electors claimed that Trump was disqualified under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits anyone who has engaged in insurrection against the U.S. Constitution from holding office. The district court found that Trump had engaged in insurrection on January 6, 2021, but concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply to the presidency.Upon review, the Supreme Court of the State of Colorado held that the Election Code allows the electors to challenge Trump's status as a qualified candidate based on Section Three. The court found that Congress does not need to pass legislation for Section Three's disqualification provision to apply, and that the provision encompasses the office of the Presidency. The court further held that the district court did not err in finding that Trump had engaged in insurrection, and that his speech inciting the crowd was not protected by the First Amendment. As a result, the court concluded that Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three, and it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Secretary of State to list him as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot. The court stayed its ruling until January 4, 2024, to maintain the status quo pending any review by the U.S. Supreme Court. View "Anderson v. Griswold" on Justia Law

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The Supreme Court of the State of Colorado affirmed the district court's order to suppress inculpatory statements made by the defendant, John J. Sanders Jr., in a case involving alleged sexual assault on a child. The district court concluded that Sanders's statements were elicited during a custodial interrogation without proper Miranda warnings and were not voluntary. The People appealed, challenging the district court's ruling on custody but failing to sufficiently challenge the court's separate ruling on voluntariness. The Supreme Court affirmed the district court's order, stating that even if they agreed with the People on the issue of custody, they must affirm the district court's suppression order due to the unchallenged finding of involuntariness. View "People v. Sanders" on Justia Law

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On November 18, 2022, Ashleigh Walthour drove her car off a snowy road into some trees. She ran the four or five blocks to her home and called the Aurora Police Department. When the police arrived at Walthour’s home to speak with her, she smelled like alcohol and had slurred speech, dilated pupils, and bloodshot eyes. She admitted to having consumed a shooter of Jack Daniels and was unable to perform voluntary roadside maneuvers. Walthour was arrested and taken to the Aurora City Jail, where she consented to a blood test. The police submitted Walthour’s blood sample to the CBI for processing on November 23. Walthour appeared in court for the first time on January 6, 2023. At that hearing, she notified the court that she would seek the assistance of the Public Defender’s Office. The court set a second hearing for February 6. However, at the second hearing, Walthour explained that she had not qualified for a public defender and would be representing herself. At the same hearing, the State said it had not yet received the blood test results from the CBI but that they “should” have the results “hopefully within the next week or two.” The court set a third pretrial conference for March 7 and directed the prosecution to disclose the test results by February 28 at 5 p.m. The prosecutor did not have any test results to disclose on that date. The trial court announced that it would suppress blood alcohol test results when no trial had been set and the prosecution had not yet received the results of the test from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (“CBI”). A day later, on March 8, the prosecutor received the blood test results from the CBI. The Colorado Supreme Court found Colorado Rule of Criminal Procedure 16(I)(b)(3), which required prosecutors to disclose the results of scientific exams such as blood alcohol tests to defendants “as soon as practicable but not later than [thirty-five] days before trial,” did not support the trial court's preemptive suppression. The matter was remanded to the trial court for further proceedings. View "Colorado v. Walthour" on Justia Law

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The Weld County Colorado Board of County Commissioners (“Weld County”) sought review of rules adopted by the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission (the “Commission”) to minimize emissions of certain pollutants from oil and gas wells. A Colorado court of appeals applied a specialized political subdivision standing test and concluded that Weld County did not have standing to pursue its claims. In Colorado State Board of Education v. Adams County School District 14, 2023 CO 52, __ P.3d __, the Colorado Supreme Court abandoned the political subdivision test because it generated unnecessary confusion, and that a political subdivision, just like any other plaintiff, had to satisfy only the standing test developed in Wimberly v. Ettenberg, 570 P.2d 535 (Colo. 1977). Applying that holding here, the Court examined whether Weld County has suffered (1) an injury in fact (2) to a legally protected interest. To this, the Court concluded that, although Weld County had a legally protected interest, it could not demonstrate an injury to that interest. Accordingly, Weld County lacked standing to pursue the claims raised here. We thus affirm the division’s judgment, albeit on different grounds. View "Weld County v. Ryan" on Justia Law

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Two months after an apparent arson left five people dead, the Denver Police Department (“DPD”) had no suspects. They employed an unconventional investigative technique: a “reverse-keyword warrant.” Google disclosed to DPD a list that included five Colorado internet protocol (“IP”) addresses associated with devices that had searched for the location of the fire in a roughly two-week period before it occurred. Based in part on this information, law enforcement eventually charged Gavin Seymour and two others with multiple counts of first degree murder. Seymour moved to suppress the fruit of the warrant, arguing that it lacked probable cause and particularity. The trial court denied Seymour’s suppression motion. The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed, finding: (1) under the Colorado Constitution, Seymour had a constitutionally protected privacy interest in his Google search history even when revealed only in connection with his IP address and not his name and that, under both the Colorado Constitution and the Fourth Amendment, he also had a constitutionally protected possessory interest in that same history; (2) Seymour’s Google search history implicated his right to freedom of expression; (3) the warrant at issue adequately particularized the place to be searched and the things to be seized; (4) the warrant required individualized probable cause and that its absence here rendered the warrant constitutionally defective; and (5) law enforcement obtained and executed the warrant in good faith, so the evidence shouldn’t be suppressed under the exclusionary rule. "At every step, law enforcement acted reasonably to carry out a novel search in a constitutional manner. Suppressing the evidence here wouldn’t deter police misconduct." View "Colorado v. Seymour" on Justia Law

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Charles Dorsey was convicted in 1997 of criminal attempt to commit sexual assault in the second degree. As a result, Dorsey was required to register as a sex offender, which he did. Dorsey was obligated to re-register as a sex offender every year. In 2010, Dorsey was charged with a class 6 felony for failure to register as a sex offender. He ultimately pled guilty to a class 1 misdemeanor failure-to-register offense. Dorsey failed to re-register as a sex offender for a second time in 2017. This time, the matter proceeded to a jury trial. The trial court reasoned the prior-conviction provision of subsection (2)(a) was a sentence enhancer that could be proved to the judge in the event of a conviction, not an element of the offense that had to be proved to the jury. After the jury found Dorsey guilty of the substantive charge, the trial court ruled, at the sentencing hearing, that the State had proved the fact of his prior conviction by a preponderance of the evidence. Consequently, it entered a judgment of conviction on a class 5 felony. The Colorado Supreme Court concurred that the legislature intended to make the fact of a prior conviction a sentence enhancer, and that the Constitution did not require the fact of a prior conviction to be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. View "Dorsey v. Colorado" on Justia Law

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Pursuant to a request from Lakewood Animal Control, a deputy with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office (“LCSO”), conducted a welfare check on the animals at Constance Caswell’s residential property in Limon, Colorado, on March 15, 2016. Approximately two weeks later, LCSO deputies executed a search warrant at Caswell’s property. Based on the deputies’ search, the State filed a complaint charging Caswell with forty-three class 6 felony counts of cruelty to animals. Cruelty to animals was generally a class 1 misdemeanor, § 18-9-202(2)(a), but pursuant to subsection (2)(b)(I) of the statute, it was a class 6 felony if the defendant had a prior conviction for that crime. Each of the counts brought against Caswell identified her prior cruelty-to-animals conviction as a fact that elevated the classification of the charge from a misdemeanor to a felony and enhanced the applicable sentence. Before trial, defense counsel moved for bifurcation to prevent the jury from hearing about his client’s prior conviction for cruelty to animals. The trial court denied the motion as moot, however, ruling that the fact of a prior conviction was a sentence enhancer, not an element of the crime, which meant that it didn’t have to be proved to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury found Caswell guilty of all forty-three counts. During the sentencing hearing, Caswell conceded that she had previously been convicted of cruelty to animals. The trial court accordingly entered forty-three class 6 felony convictions. It then sentenced Caswell to eight years of probation, forty-three days in jail, and forty-seven days of in-home detention. The Colorado Supreme Court held that where, as was here, a cruelty-to-animals (second or subsequent offense) case (1) includes notice in the charging document of the prior conviction for cruelty to animals and (2) is treated as a felony throughout the proceedings—including in terms of its prosecution in district court (not county court), the right to a preliminary hearing (if eligible), the number of peremptory challenges, and the number of jurors - the Sixth Amendment doesn’t require that the misdemeanor - felony transforming fact in subsection (2)(b)(I) be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. "In sum, there was no error, much less plain error, here. Caswell’s right to a jury trial under the Colorado Constitution was not violated." View "Caswell v. Colorado" on Justia Law

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Petitioner Delano Medina pleaded guilty to felony menacing even though he maintained his innocence of that charge. He did so in exchange for the dismissal of several other criminal cases. The trial court found that Medina’s plea was voluntary, knowing, and intelligent. But because Medina agreed to waive the establishment of a factual basis for menacing under Crim. P. 11(b)(6), the trial court did not make a finding as to whether strong evidence of Medina’s actual guilt existed. Medina later moved to withdraw his plea as violative of due process, arguing that a defendant cannot waive proof of a factual basis when entering an "Alford" plea. The postconviction court denied his motion, and a division of the court of appeals affirmed. The issue this case presented for the Colorado Supreme Court's review was whether an Alford plea required a trial court to make a finding of strong evidence of actual guilt to pass constitutional muster. The Court found no such requirement, rather, holding that the establishment of a factual basis for the charge under Crim. P. 11(b)(6), provided that the plea is voluntary, knowing, and intelligent. The Court therefore affirmed the division’s judgment, albeit on slightly different grounds. View "Medina v. Colorado" on Justia Law

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Petitioners, a number of Colorado residents, local officials, voters, counties, and county commissioners, a nonprofit corporation, and a metropolitan district, contended: (1) Senate Bill 23-303 (“SB 303”) and its embedded referred measure, Proposition HH, violated the Colorado Constitution’s single subject requirement; and (2) Proposition HH violated the constitution’s clear expression requirement. After review, the Colorado Supreme Court found Colorado courts did not have subject matter jurisdiction to review either SB303 or Proposition HH for compliance with the state constitution’s single subject requirement unless and until those measures have been approved by Colorado voters. The Court further concluded that although the Supreme Court had jurisdiction to consider petitioners’ clear expression challenges to Proposition HH, at least to the extent that any defects in the title were amenable to reformation by the courts, petitioners did not establish Proposition HH violated the clear expression requirement. Accordingly, the Supreme Court affirmed the portions of the district court’s judgment concluding that the court lacked jurisdiction to consider petitioners’ single subject claims and denying petitioners’ requested relief on their clear expression claims, and vacated the portions of the district court’s judgment conditionally deciding the merits of petitioners’ single subject claims. The Court expressed no opinion on the merits of petitioners’ single subject claims. View "Ward v. Colorado" on Justia Law