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Colorado Supreme Court Pauses Mandatory Courtroom Livestreams Over Harassment and Jury Concerns
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Colorado Supreme Court Pauses Mandatory Courtroom Livestreams Over Harassment and Jury Concerns

By Justin George | The Colorado Sun Chief Justice Monica Márquez’s 90-day directive lets judges opt out of livestreaming by default, reversing a 2023 law amid rising social-media harassment and jury-tainting fears. For the next three months, it will be up to Colorado judges to decide whether to livestream proceedings in their courtrooms. A directive by Colorado’s Supreme Court chief justice Tuesday said the pause on livestreaming by default is necessary to ensure the integrity and fairness of the judicial system.  The order is in direct contrast to a Colorado law passed in 2023 that requires all criminal proceedings to be livestreamed, and judges to make certain findings if they are to limit or discontinue the stream.  Virtual proceedings, like joini...
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Roaring Fork district sought friendly press after legal threat over sex ed curriculum
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

Roaring Fork district sought friendly press after legal threat over sex ed curriculum

By Kelly Notarfrancesco | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Slides from Roaring Fork School District's "Understanding Our Bodies" 3Rs lessons, including the "Making Sense of Puberty" 4th/5th grade deck and its "A Note on Language" slide on gender identity and anatomy. (Roaring Fork Schools) Kindergarten lessons including explicit discussion of genitalia and instructing children to learn that there are “some body parts that mostly just girls have and some body parts that mostly just boys have.” Second grade lessons including graphic anatomical images of nude children and training to recognize people based on their identities. Sixth grade lessons directing kids to visit non-academic websites that invite them to take advocacy action on LGBTQ+ issues. These and o...
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Millions of License Plates Appear in Flock Search Records. Is Yours One of Them?
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CBS News, Approved, National

Millions of License Plates Appear in Flock Search Records. Is Yours One of Them?

By Mary Cunningham | CBS News As privacy concerns swirl over Flock Safety's nationwide network of cameras, drivers may be curious whether their license plate information is being tracked. The website HaveIBeenFlocked.com has compiled a database to provide the public with some answers.  Through the website's portal, people can enter their license number to see whether it has been searched in Flock's system.  As the website notes, the results show what Flock's customers — which include police agencies, local communities, schools and businesses — have searched for, but not the individual license plates captured by Flock's cameras.  "The license plates and search reasons are what someone manually entered into the system," the websi...
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Judge Orders Griswold to Turn Over Records Tied to Taxpayer-Funded Consulting
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CBS Colorado, Approved, State

Judge Orders Griswold to Turn Over Records Tied to Taxpayer-Funded Consulting

By Shaun Boyd | CBS Colorado A Denver District Court judge has given Secretary of State Jena Griswold until Thursday to comply with an open records request, or she could be held in contempt. The records involve consulting work, paid for with public funds. Griswold's office says it doesn't have the documents and it refuses to ask the consultant for them, claiming that would impose an undue "burden." Instead, the Secretary of State's office sent four employees and the Attorney General's Office sent three attorneys to court. The consultant was brought in two years after Griswold became Secretary of State. The office had become a revolving door. Griswold was on her second deputy secretary, third chief legal counsel and fourth chief of staff. An invoice in the court record ...
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Colorado’s dirty voter roll: Final observations
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado’s dirty voter roll: Final observations

By Mike O’Donnell | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice  After six installments examining Colorado's voter registration system, Mike O'Donnell closes his series with additional observations from his review of the public voter roll and his final thoughts on what he believes should change to strengthen election integrity in Colorado. Errata By wandering through the public Colorado voter roll and grouping registrants by addresses OR by accessing the powerful (and free) ELLY program to identify potential anomalies, there are plenty of things that need to be fixed or cleaned up on Colorado’s voter roll.  And although the Secretary of State makes it more than challenging than it needs to be to clean up the voter roll, it doesn’t hurt to ask questions of county clerks or pu...
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Colorado’s dirty voter roll: The curious case of Apartment A503
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado’s dirty voter roll: The curious case of Apartment A503

By Mike O’Donnell | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Questions about who belongs on Colorado's voter rolls extend beyond duplicate registrations. In Part 6, Mike O'Donnell examines how citizenship verification works, why he believes outside review is limited and how one Aurora apartment address became the most unusual pattern he encountered while reviewing Colorado's public voter roll. Noncitizen Registrants The very first question on the Colorado Voter Registration Form asks whether an application is a U.S. citizen or not. The answer to this first question is required, although if someone “forgets” to answer it, then because they also sign the declaration at the bottom of page 1, they are nonetheless presumed to be a U.S. citizen. An AI...
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Colorado’s dirty voter roll: When one registration becomes two
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Colorado’s dirty voter roll: When one registration becomes two

By Mike O’Donnell | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice A voter registration is intended to identify one eligible voter. In Part 5, Mike O'Donnell shares examples he flagged during a manual review of more than 412,000 Colorado voter records that he says appear to show duplicate registrations created by small differences in names and other identifying information. Duplicated Voter Registrations The vast number of new registrants added to the Colorado voter roll each year are added automatically. The Department of Revenue is required to electronically report information on “each unregistered elector or person eligible to preregister who applies for the issuance, renewal, or correction of a Colorado driver's license or identification card and who provides documentation of ...
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Federal Appeals Court Rejects Anonymous Lawsuit Against Colorado Judicial Branch
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Federal Appeals Court Rejects Anonymous Lawsuit Against Colorado Judicial Branch

By: Michael Karlik | Colorado Politics The Denver-based federal appeals court concluded last month that a former attorney cannot mask her identity while suing the Colorado Judicial Department for alleged improprieties in her disability and disbarment proceedings. “Jane Roe,” representing herself, sued the Judicial Department and attorney regulators in 2024. She accused the defendants of discrimination, defamation, and violations of her constitutional rights in the proceedings that culminated in her disbarment. Because Roe did not have an attorney, Colorado’s federal trial court routed her complaint through its screening process for self-represented litigants. U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard T. Gurley advised Roe that there need to be “exceptional” circumstances for plain...
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Cherry Creek Schools Spent $114K On Outside Counsel During Superintendent Scandal
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, Local

Cherry Creek Schools Spent $114K On Outside Counsel During Superintendent Scandal

By: Nicole C. Brambila | The Denver Gazette The Cherry Creek School District paid $114,000 to hire outside counsel to provide the Board of Education with legal advice as it navigated the allegations that were swirling around the former superintendent. Fisher Phillips invoices obtained through a Colorado Open Records Act request show the district paid $114,191.50 from March through June. Roughly a third of the cost — or $40,000 — was paid to Steve Welchert. Welchert is a Democratic political consultant who specializes in strategic planning, political lobbying and crisis management. Following the Jan. 27 executive session to discuss former Superintendent Chris Smith’s mid-year evaluation in which he abruptly resigned, the board hired Jane Waterman-Joyc...
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