Tag: justice monica marquez
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Colorado Supreme Court bars proposed ban on gender-affirming care for minors, clears way for primary election revamp
The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday confirmed a proposed ballot initiative to ban gender-affirming care for children will not appear on the November ballot, while another measure that would revamp the state’s primary elections and implement ranked-choice voting remains eligible. The justices reached their conclusions on narrow procedural grounds, revolving around the deadline for seeking…
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Colorado justices explore limits of anti-discrimination law in Masterpiece Cakeshop appeal
Members of the Colorado Supreme Court explored on Tuesday the tension between LGBTQ customers’ ability to be free from discrimination in the marketplace and business owners’ competing right not to be forced to express messages that violate their conscience. During oral arguments, some justices noted the difficulty of disentangling customers’ protected characteristics, like race or…
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Colorado justices, 4-3, reject defendant’s challenge to biased judge
Although the Colorado Supreme Court acknowledged on Monday that a Saguache County judge was disqualified by law from presiding over a criminal case because she briefly represented the defendant before her appointment to the bench, a majority concluded there was nothing it could do because the defense knew about the conflict and stayed silent. By…
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Is Colorado’s Supreme Court about to kill implicit bias reform?
Last year, the Colorado Supreme Court indicated it would first decide a handful of pending cases alleging racial bias in jury selection before it took action on a proposal that would make it more difficult for prosecutors to remove jurors of color for reasons that, while not explicitly racial, nonetheless correlate to race. On Monday,…
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Colorado justices nudge legislature to take action to combat racial bias in jury selection
In a major pair of decisions on Monday, the Colorado Supreme Court simultaneously found Arapahoe County prosecutors provided non-racial reasons for removing jurors of color from two criminal trials, but that judges failed to adequately determine whether those reasons were credible. Further, three of the seven justices, with seeming support from the other four, suggested…
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Colorado Supreme Court takes up cases on Title IX investigations, COVID campus closure
The Colorado Supreme Court recently agreed to hear multiple cases implicating a witness’ immunity for making defamatory statements in a school sex assault investigation, whether a university can be sued for closing its campus early in the COVID-19 pandemic, and whether a man should receive a new trial for his numerous securities fraud convictions. At…
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Colorado Supreme Court upholds man’s child enticement conviction
The Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday concluded the state’s second-highest court wrongly overturned a man’s Jefferson County conviction for a child sex offense, determining the evidence was sufficient after all to find him guilty. James Clayton Johnson is serving six years to life in prison after jurors convicted him of enticement. The offense requires someone to…
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Ethics, family law and AI: Colorado’s justices, judges speak about appellate do’s and don’ts
During a pair of events earlier this month, one for young lawyers and one for appellate attorneys more broadly, several of Colorado’s judges and justices provided commentary on subjects ranging from professionalism and artificial intelligence to key developments within the judiciary. Chief Justice Brian D. Boatright also disclosed he will swear in Justice Monica M. Márquez on July…
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Colorado justices vent about difficulty of evaluating racial bias in jury selection
Members of the Colorado Supreme Court last week expressed frustration with the difficulties of pinpointing unconstitutional racial bias in jury selection, especially when relatively few details are available after the fact about what happened at trial. “We’re trying to guess what’s in someone’s mind, someone’s heart, even when they may not be aware of it,…
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Colorado justices, attorneys take questions from students with focus on gender disparity
The Colorado Supreme Court traveled to Pueblo on Thursday where it heard oral arguments in two real cases and fielded questions from students, with a focus on the experiences of the three female justices in contrast with the male majority. “I used to be a trial court judge and every now and then, I had…