A proposed chief justice directive should be revised to allow the livestreaming of criminal trials and evidentiary hearings in Colorado courtrooms and permit virtual access to civil proceedings, the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition and the state’s news associations urged the Colorado Supreme Court.
A multi-faceted CORA bill draft circulating at the Colorado Capitol would give news organizations a break on research-and-retrieval fees, let government entities take more time to respond to many records requests and impose stricter rules for the retention of certain email records of state agencies.
Colorado’s judicial branch proposed two new chief justice directives on virtual court proceedings and asked the public to comment on them by mid-March.
A bill that restricts governments’ use of nondisclosure agreements to silence public employees in Colorado earned bipartisan support in a Senate committee.
Legislation requiring the deletion of all juvenile victim and witness names from police and court records before the records are released to the public won unanimous approval in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The names of child victims and witnesses would be removed from criminal justice records before the records are released to the public if legislation introduced by two state senators becomes law.
Nearly three years after the COVID-19 pandemic forced Colorado courts to fundamentally change how they operate, the judicial branch is developing a policy that could make the livestreaming of court proceedings more commonplace and uniform statewide. Meanwhile, a state legislator said she will introduce a bill to make remote viewing of criminal courts the “default” in Colorado.
A state lawmaker is trying again to bar the use of nondisclosure agreements to silence public employees in Colorado, this time applying the prohibition to local governments as well as the state.
