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.
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.
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.
What’s your favorite (or should we say least favorite) example from the past two or three years of someone blatantly obstructing the public’s right to know in Colorado? It could involve a Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) request, a Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act (CCJRA) request, access to a meeting under the Colorado Open Meetings Law, or access to the court system.
Bookmark it. Use it. Share it. For the first time, the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition’s sunshine laws guide is online — searchable and indexed by topic — with links to pertinent statutes and case law.
COVID-19 touched nearly every aspect of our lives in 2020 so of course it affected government transparency and public access to courts in Colorado.
We didn’t think our story would be an open-and-shut case. Neither did we expect such secrecy from a governmental branch whose purpose is to oversee the implementation of laws and enforce them.
With the livestreaming of some criminal trials during the COVID-19 pandemic, should journalists be permitted to record and share the court proceedings they see on their laptops?
A former senior assistant attorney general for Colorado is making a case for a more transparent state system of regulating the legal profession. Comments submitted by Paul Chessin this month to the Colorado Supreme Court call for public disclosure to be “the rule, not the exception.”
A Denver judge has dismissed an anonymous physician’s legal attempt to stop the Colorado Medical Board from initiating public disciplinary proceedings against her for allegedly providing substandard care.
