Justia Colorado Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Pursuant to its statutory authority, the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB), after a notice and comment period and a hearing, voted to appropriate an instream flow right (ISF) on the San Miguel River, and to file a water application for water rights with the water court. Farmers Water Development Company opposed the proposed San Miguel ISF during the notice and comment period, but did not attend the hearing. Farmers also opposed the application at the water court. On cross-motions for a determination of a question of law, the water court was asked to determine whether the CWCB's decision to appropriate an ISF was a quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial decision. Farmers argued that the decision was quasi-judicial, and that the procedures CWCB followed did not meet the dictates of procedural due process. The water court disagreed, concluding the CWCB was acting in a quasi-legislative capacity when it decided to appropriate the San Miguel ISF because, among other things, it was not adjudicating individual rights. The Supreme Court agreed: the CWCB's ISF appropriation was quasi-legislative because it was a policy decision "to preserve the natural environment" on behalf of the people of Colorado, as opposed to an adjudication of the rights of any specific party. View "Colo. Water Conservation Bd. v. Farmers Water Development Co." on Justia Law

Defendant Zachariah Jones petitioned the Supreme Court to appeal a district court's decision to revoke his bail bond in its entirety, and ordered that he be held without bond pending resolution of charges in a different district. Defendant was arrested, charged and released on bond in connection with several felony drug offenses in Denver County. Several months later, the Denver District Attorney moved to revoke bond, alleging that while Jones was released on bond, a court in Adams County issued a warrant for his arrest, based on an assault charge. The Denver district court concluded that because another court had found probable cause to believe defendant committed another felony, it had the statutory authority to revoke bond. The Court of Appeals found it lacked jurisdiction to review the Denver district court's judgment according to an expedited procedure listed in 16-4-205 (3), C.R.S. (2014). The Supreme Court reversed and remanded after review, concluding the appellate court erred in concluding that it lacked jurisdiction to entertain the appeal. "Because section 105(3) merely empowered the district court to have Jones brought before it for purposes of modifying the conditions of his pretrial release, the district court erred in revoking his existing bond and denying him a right to pretrial release altogether." The matter was remanded to the district court with directions to reinstate defendant's bail bond. View "In re Colorado v. Jones" on Justia Law

Petitioner Sarah Burnett and a friend went camping at Cherry Creek State Park. They chose a campsite under a canopy of mature cottonwood trees. "The weather that night was uneventful." Early the next morning, while petitioner and her friend remained sleeping inside their tent, a large limb dropped from one of the trees and struck both of them. The blow fractured petitioner's skull and a vertebra, and caused other injuries, including a concussion and multiple lacerations to her scalp and face. The friend suffered only minor injuries, and was able to drive petitioner to the hospital. Petitioner brought a premises liability action against the State Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation, seeking compensation for her injuries, arguing the Park was a "public facility" and the branches overhanging the campsite constituted a "dangerous condition." The issue this case presented for the Colorado Supreme Court's review centered on whether the State waived its immunity for petitioner's injuries. The answer turned on whether the tree was a "natural condition...of unimproved property" under 24-10-106(1)(e) C.R.S. (2014) of the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act. The Court held that a "natural condition of any unimproved property" includes native trees originating on unimproved property. Because a limb from such a tree caused petitioner's injuries, the natural condition provision of the statute immunized the State in this case. View "Burnett v. Dept. of Natural Resources" on Justia Law

In an interlocutory appeal, the State challenged the trial court's order suppressing statements made by defendant Douglas Thames during a custodial interrogation. Investigators gave defendant an oral Miranda advisement, defendant confirmed that he understood them, and he then signed a written waiver for before making the statements the prosecution wished to use in its case-in-chief. The trial court, relying on a defense expert witness who testified that defendant had difficulty understanding spoken paragraphs concerning abstract ideas, concluded that defendant did not knowingly or intelligently waive his Miranda rights. Reviewing the totality of the circumstances, the Supreme Court concluded that defendant indeed knowingly and intelligently waived his rights. Therefore, the Court reversed the trial court's order. View "Colorado v. Thames" on Justia Law

The Tip Jackwater right was originally decreed to service the Tip Jack Ditch, which is part of a 4,000-acre ranch now owned and operated by the Jim Hutton Educational Foundation. The State and Division 1 Engineers added the Tip Jack water right to the 2010 Revised Decennial Abandonment List for Water Division One because they found that the Foundation had abandoned the right. The Foundation challenged the listing. After trial, the water court concluded that the Engineers had not established by a preponderance that Jim Hutton or the Foundation had failed to use the Tip Jack water right, and even if they had, the Foundation had rebutted the presumption of abandonment. The Engineers appealed. The issue this case presented on appeal for the Supreme Court's review was one of first impression: how the presumption of abandonment applied when the water right holder continued to put decreed water to the use for which it was decreed, but nevertheless failed to divert water from the decreed diversion point for a period of ten years or more. The Supreme Court held that hold that when the Engineers prove that the water right holder has not used the decreed point of diversion for ten years or more, the Engineers trigger the rebuttable presumption of abandonment under C.R.S. section 37-92-402(11).Once triggered, the burden shifts to the water right holder to demonstrate a lack of intent to abandon. Because the water court erroneously believed that proof of nonuse at the decreed point of diversion was insufficient to raise the presumption, it failed to require evidence excusing such nonuse in order to rebut the presumption. The Court therefore reverse the water court’s judgment and remand for reconsideration of whether the Foundation met its burden of rebutting the presumption of abandonment. View "Wolfe v. Jim Hutton Educational Foundation" on Justia Law

Petitioner Joe Anthony Martinez was convicted by jury for first-degree murder after deliberation under a complicity theory. When the court instructed the jury on "after deliberation," it used language that the Supreme Court had previously held as constitutionally deficient. At trial, defense counsel objected to the language on grounds that it was cumulative and unnecessary, but erroneously acknowledged that it correctly stated the law. The trial court overruled the objection and the jury found defendant guilty as charged. On appeal, petitioner raised for the first time the argument that the Supreme Court previously disapproved the definition of "after deliberation" used in the jury instructions, and that the erroneous instruction was so prejudicial as to require reversal as plain error. He also renewed claims that the evidence presented against him was insufficient to sustain his conviction. The court of appeals reviewed the instruction for plain error and ultimately upheld petitioner's conviction. Finding no reversible error in the court of appeal's judgment, the Supreme Court also affirmed. View "Martinez v. Colorado" on Justia Law

At issue in this case was whether several food and beverage concessionaires at the City-owned airport held taxable possessory interests under the test in "Board of County Commissioners v. Vail Associates, Inc.," (19 P.3d 1263 (Colo. 2001)). Relying on "Vail Associates," the City and County of Denver assessed property taxes on the concessionaires' possessory interests in their airport concession spaces. The concessionaires protested the valuation and eventually sued. The court of appeals affirmed, concluding that the concessionaires' interest were taxable under Vail Associates. The Supreme Court also affirmed: the concessionaires' interests were sufficiently exclusive because the concessionaires had the right to exclude others from using their respective concessions spaces; the totality of the circumstances reflected that the concessionaires' revenue-generating capability was independent of the City; and the valuation of the interests was consistent with the General Assembly's possessory interest valuation scheme set forth by statute, and supported by the record. View "Cantina Grill, JV v. City & Cty. of Denver Cty. Bd of Equalization" on Justia Law

The Department of Corrections directly appealed to the Supreme Court the grant of habeas relief to petitioner-appellee Randal Ankeney. Complying with a mandate from the court of appeals (in an earlier appeal), the district court interpreted various statutory provisions regarding good time and earned time credit to require Ankeney's release from prison almost three years before the date calculated by the Department. Because the lower courts erred in their conclusions that for inmates convicted after July 1, 1993, good time credits awarded pursuant to C.R.S. 17-22.5-301 (2014), were to be applied against an inmate's mandatory release date rather than to determine his parole eligibility. The Supreme Court concluded that had the credits been properly applied, Ankeney had not completed service of his required parole term. Therefore, the Supreme Court reversed the district court's order. View "Ankeney v. Raemisch" on Justia Law

In an interlocutory appeal, the State appealed a trial court order to suppress certain statements made by defendant Luis Carrion during a custodial interrogation. Officers gave Carrion an oral Miranda advisement and provided him an English language written advisement on a waiver form, which he later signed. After finding the oral Miranda advisement deficient and that the prosecution presented insufficient evidence Carrion was able to read English, the trial court suppressed the statements made during the interrogation. The prosecution argued that the trial court erred because the factual findings were not supported by the record. Upon review, the Colorado Supreme Court concluded that the trial court's factual findings were indeed supported by the record and were not clearly erroneous. Therefore, the Court affirmed the trial court's order. View "Colorado v. Carrion" on Justia Law

The district court declared a vacancy in the Adams County School District 12 Director District 4 school board director position because defendant-appellee Amy Speers was elected but unqualified to serve. An issue arose when the two candidates signed affidavits affirming that they met all the requisite qualifications to hold the office, but unbeknownst to Speers, the School District had redrawn the director districts in 2012, and had placed Speers' home outside of Director District 4. The School District's designated election officer was also unaware that Speers no longer met the residency requirement, and deemed both petitions sufficient. Neither the sufficiency of Speers' petition nor her certification to the ballot was challenged within the five-day window (under C.R.S. 1-4-909(1) (2014)). The election officer's certification of both candidates to the ballot was therefore valid. In a final attempt to effectively withdraw Speers from the election, the Secretary of State issued an emergency rule at the end of the final day of the election that instructed the clerks not to count the ballots cast for Speers. A district court invalidated this rule as incompatible with Colorado's election code, and we upheld that court's decision in "Hanlen v. Gessler," (333 P.3d 41 2014)) because "questions regarding a certified candidate's eligibility [must] be determined by a court, not an election official." On remand, the district court considered plaintiff-appellant Enrico Figueroa's claims that Speers was not eligible to hold office, that the votes cast for her were invalid, and this he was legally elected to the Director District 4 position. The district court concluded that because neither Figueroa nor any other party sought any judicial intervention whatsoever prior to the election, Figueroa had "slept on his rights" and thus Speers had won the election. Regarding Speers, the court found that there was no dispute that she was ineligible to hold the office for which she was elected and because she had not sought to take the oath of office and did not intend to cure the residency defect, her election was voided. The court then declared a vacancy in the Director District 4 position. Figueroa appealed directly to the Colorado Supreme Court. After review, the Supreme Court held that, though Speers was unqualified to serve, no court declared her to be unqualified until after the voting had been completed. In this situation, the legally elected party is the party who receives the most legal votes. Thus, Speers was legally elected because she received the most legal votes, meaning Figueroa was not legally elected. The district court therefore correctly voided her election and declared a vacancy under the provisions of Colorado' selection code, and its judgment was affirmed. View "Figueroa v. Speers" on Justia Law