Justia Colorado Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Boulder County chose to develop "the Bailey Farm" into a public open-space park which would feature several ponds formed from abandoned gravel pits filled with groundwater. The County had to replace out-of-priority stream depletions caused by evaporation from those ponds. To meet this obligation, the County filed an application for underground water rights, approval of a plan for augmentation, a change of water rights, and an appropriative right of substitution and exchange. The water court dismissed the application without prejudice, and the County now appeals that judgment. The components of the County’s application were interdependent, such that approval of the application as a whole hinged on approval of the plan for augmentation, which in turn hinged on approval of the change of water rights. To ensure this change would not unlawfully expand the Bailey Farm's water rights, the County conducted a parcel-specific historical consumptive use (“HCU”) analysis of that right. The water court found this HCU analysis inadequate for several reasons and therefore concluded the County failed to carry its burden of accurately demonstrating HCU. The pivotal consideration in this case was whether the County carried its burden of proving HCU. Like the water court, the Supreme Court concluded it did not. The Court therefore affirmed the water court’s judgment on that basis. View "Cty. of Boulder v. Boulder & Weld Cty. Ditch Co." on Justia Law

Defendant-appellee Amadeo Chavez-Barragan was charged with possessing methamphetamine with intent to distribute. After the trial court granted defendant's motion to suppress certain evidence, the State appealed. The Supreme Court concluded reasonable suspicion supported the initial stop, the Court reversed the trial court's order and remanded for further proceedings. View "Colorado v. Chavez-Barragan" on Justia Law

The Colorado Supreme Court granted the State's petition to review a district court's order that concluded that the "lewd fondling or caress" provision of the Colorado public indecency statute was unconstitutionally overbroad and vague. The Court found that the provision did not burden a substantial amount of protected speech or expressive conduct, so it was not unconstitutionally overbroad. Moreover, because defendant's conduct in this case met any reasonable definition of "lewd fondling or caress," the statute wasnot vague as applied to his actions. The Court reversed the trial court's order holding to the contrary. View "Colorado v. Graves" on Justia Law

Petitioner Charles Dean was convicted by jury of second degree murder, the sentence for which carried a maximum presumptive sentencing range of twenty-four years. The trial court adjudicated him a habitual criminal and sentenced him under Colorado's habitual criminal statute. Under the corresponding parole eligibility provision governing his conviction, petitioner had to serve seventy-five percent of his sentence, here, seventy-two years, before he was eligible for parole. On appeal of that sentence, petitioner contended that the interplay of the habitual criminal statute and the parole eligibility statute, as applied to his case, violated his right to equal protection because he had to serve a longer period of incarceration before he was eligible for parole than a habitual offender with a history of more serious felony convictions. After review, the Supreme Court held that the sentencing and parole eligibility scheme for habitual criminal offenders did not violate petitioner's constitutional right to equal protection. View "Colorado v. Dean" on Justia Law

Petitioner Fabian Sebastian filed a 42 U.S.C. 1983 (2014) action against Douglas County, the Douglas County Sheriff's Office, the Douglas County Sheriff David Weaver, and Deputy Greg Black. Petitioner alleged his Fourth Amendment right was violated when he was attacked by a K-9 police dog. The dog was released by the deputy to seize two suspects who fled a vehicle and climbed a fence; petitioner was sitting with his hands up, in the vehicle's backseat. Petitioner failed to respond to the County's motion to dismiss, then moved to set aside the resulting dismissal, claiming excusable neglect. The trial court denied petitioner's motion, and petitioner appealed. The court of appeals reversed and remanded the case for a full three-factor analysis under "Goodman Assocs., LLC v. Mountain Properties, LLC." The trial court performed the analysis, again denied petitioner's motion. On appeal, petitioner argued the appellate court erred in its conclusion that he did not allege a meritorious claim. The Supreme Court affirmed, but on narrower grounds: petitioner failed to allege a meritorious claim because his allegations regarding an intentional seizure consisted only of legal conclusions. View "Sebastian v. Douglas County" on Justia Law

Defendant-respondent Eduardo Perez was convicted of identity theft and criminal impersonation for using another person's Social Security Number in order to get a job. The issue his case presented for the Colorado Supreme Court's review involved the applicability of the culpable mental state, "knowingly," to the elements of identity theft as enumerated in 18-5-902, C.R.S. (2015). After review, the Supreme Court held that to be guilty of identity theft, an offender must have used the identifying information of another with knowledge that the information belonged to an actual person. The Court concluded that the evidence presented at respondent's trial was sufficient to support the jury's conclusion that responded indeed knew the Social Security number he used belonged to actual person. View "Colorado v. Perez" on Justia Law

The Colorado Supreme Court granted certiorari review of this matter to determine whether the trial court erred by denying a challenge for cause to a potential juror who was an employee of a privately owned and operated prison. The court of appeals held that because the private prison used "sovereign police powers characteristic of law enforcement in the service of the public interest," it was a "public law enforcement agency" as used by statute. The appellate court concluded the trial court should have sustained the defendant's challenge for cause. The Supreme Court found that under the plain language of 16-10-103(1)(k) C.R.S. 2015, a private company that operates a prison was not a "public law enforcement agency" because it was not a division of a state or federal government that has the authority to investigate crimes or to arrest, prosecute or detain criminals. The Court reversed the appellate court and remanded this case for further proceedings. View "Colorado v. Bonvicini" on Justia Law

The issue for the Colorado Supreme Court's review in this case required an interpretation of the statute that provided for challenges for cause to potential jurors in criminal cases. Specifically, the issue involved the scope of the provision that directed trial courts to sustain a challenge to a potential juror who was a "compensated employee of a public law enforcement agency." Petitioner Samuel Mulberger brought a challenge to a juror who worked as a nurse for the El Paso County Jail. The nurse was paid by a governmental contractor, but was not a compensated employee of the jail. Mulberger used a peremptory challenge to dismiss the potential juror and ultimately exhausted all of his challenges. The jury found Mulberger guilty, and the court of appeals affirmed. On appeal, Mulberger argued the trial court erred in concluding the contract-employee was not an employee of the public law enforcement agency, and that the trial court erroneously denied his challenge for cause, then exhausted his challenges to remove the juror. The Supreme Court found no reversible error in the trial court's judgment and affirmed the court of appeals. View "Mulberger v. Colorado" on Justia Law

During jury selection in this civil case, plaintiff challenged a juror for cause. The trial court denied the challenge, and in response, plaintiff exercised one of his peremptory challenges to excuse the juror. The Court of Appeals held that the trial court erred in denying plaintiff's challenge, reversed and remanded for a new trial without examining whether the error was harmless. The Colorado Supreme Court reversed and remanded. As the Court detailed in "Colorado v. Novotny," (320 P.3d 1194 (2014)), the automatic reversal rule in the criminal context rested on the assumption that impairment of the ability to shape the jury through peremptory challenges affected a "substantial right," and amounted to a due process violation. Such impairment was per se reversible and not subject to harmless error review. "[H]owever, subsequent developments in U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence wiped away the foundations of that assumption, suggesting that an error regarding the ability to shape the jury is not a due process violation, and would affect a substantial right only if it substantially affected the outcome of the trial." The Court overruled Colorado cases to the contrary and held that allowing a civil litigant fewer peremptory challenges than authorized, or than available to and exercised by the opposing party, does not, by itself, require automatic reversal. Reviewing courts must determine whether the error substantially influenced the outcome of the case in accordance with the civil harmless error rule. View "Newman, LLC v. Roberts" on Justia Law

The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit certified a question of Colorado law to the Colorado Supreme Court. The issue centered on whether the City of Englewood's Ordinance 34 (effectively barring sex offenders from residing within the city) was preempted by Colorado law. The federal district court in this case concluded that such a conflict did exist because Colorado had generally opted for a policy of individualized treatment of sex offenders, and the ordinance acted as a bar to residency. The Colorado Supreme Court disagreed with the federal district court and found no conflict. With no conflict between state law and the ordinance, the Colorado Court concluded Ordinance 34 was not preempted. The case was returned to the Tenth Circuit for further proceedings. View "Ryals v. City of Englewood" on Justia Law