By Jeffrey A. Roberts
CFOIC Executive Director
In March 2025, while representing clients threatened with libel, First Amendment attorney Steve Zansberg asked for a case report and related documents from the 23rd Judicial District Attorney’s Office in Douglas County.
Zansberg, who is president of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, never got the records. But that wasn’t because the DA’s office issued a denial under the Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act (CCJRA).
He never got a denial. Instead, on June 2 of this year — more than 14 months after he contacted the DA’s office — Zansberg received an email notification that his request had been canceled. “This request is being closed due to the age of the request,” the message reads.
For Zansberg, the story of his unilaterally terminated records request highlights a systemic problem with CCJRA that many requesters face: Unlike CORA, which requires the production of records “not readily available” within three working days unless extenuating circumstances apply, CCJRA does not include a response deadline. Only a small subset of “records of official action” — basic arrest reports and a few other record types — must be provided to a requester within three working days. (And body-worn camera footage depicting a use-of-force death must be released to a requester after 21 days.)
CFOIC often hears from journalists and members of the public who are frustrated by how long it can take to get criminal justice records.
Denver Post reporter Shelly Bradbury told CFOIC she waited nearly a month recently to get an eight-page municipal summons in an Aurora case after the court clerk insisted she go through the police department for the record. Suzie Glassman, a reporter with the Colorado Trust for Local News, contacted CFOIC after waiting more than two months for a contract document from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
TEGNA journalist Jeremy Jojola took to X in March 2023 to air his CCJRA grievances: “Filed a records request with @AuroraPD in January. Automatic response in records portal said it could take up to ‘24 weeks, but could be longer.’ Still waiting. ***Six months for records.*** Documents delayed is documents denied.”
The website of the Aurora Police Department now says, “Due to high volumes of requests, our turn around time for processing is currently 6 to 8 weeks.” There are about 1,000 pending requests, public information officer Joe Moylan told CFOIC.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that law enforcement records custodians can withhold criminal justice records if certain factors, such as an ongoing investigation, outweigh the public interest in disclosure. Although systems such as Aurora’s NextRequest portal let people track their requests online, requesters can be made to wait long periods of time not knowing whether they ultimately will be denied.
The Aurora PD processes most CCJRA records requests on a first-come, first-served basis, meaning that a request for an eight-page document like Bradbury sought could be processed well behind a large request for bodycam footage.
“In the interest of fairness, we’re going to treat everybody the same,” Moylan said. But some simple requests may be handled more quickly, he and communications manager Katie Fisher added.
“We don’t like to set timeline expectations, but there is an opportunity for a back-and-forth dialogue,” Moylan said. “You can send a message to the records department through the system and they can message you.” The records custodian might ask, for instance, whether a requester wants to narrow the scope of a large request.
23rd Judicial DA George Brauchler told CFOIC his office couldn’t respond to Zansberg’s request until it heard back from Parker police about the status of a crime investigation related to the case Zansberg had asked about, and “that took a long, long time.”
“We probably shouldn’t have canceled it,” he said. “It’s just part and parcel of the system that we kind of inherited when we became part of the 23rd. We ended up using the county system … and I think (the cancelation) was the natural consequence of somebody clicking a button that just said, there’s nothing else going on, this thing hasn’t been acted on in a while, and they closed it. It probably didn’t have to go that direction.”
(A bill passed by the legislature in 2020 created the 23rd Judicial District, which includes Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties. Brauchler was sworn in as the district’s first DA in January 2025.)
Should CCJRA be amended to include a response deadline?
In 2022, CFOIC asked a University of Denver law student to compare access to criminal justice records in all 50 states, including how state laws address agency response deadlines.
“Imposing a mandatory response time on agencies has several key benefits,” the report concluded. “Primarily, it puts requesters and agencies on notice and sets expectations on both sides. But it also prevents agencies from sitting on records requests for inordinate amounts of time as a method of denial.”
The research showed that several states require a much quicker response. Georgia, for example, mandates a response from agencies within three business days with records that can be located and produced within that period. If more time is needed, the agency must provide the requester with a written description of the records and an estimated timeline for their production.
In Idaho, agencies have three working days to produce records or deny a request. They can get an extension of up to 10 business days if additional time is needed to locate or produce records. In Michigan, a requester can expect an agency to respond within five business days by providing the records, providing them in part, providing a written denial, or providing a written notice that a 10-day extension is necessary (available only in “unusual circumstances”).
Moylan said more staffing would help alleviate backlogs for big departments like Aurora’s that get high volumes of requests. But requesters also could “really make a dent in our current wait times” by being more specific when they ask for records.
“I see a lot of requests where people want every second of bodycam from an incident. The amount of staff time, the amount of hours that goes into processing a voluminous request, it just takes time.”
Brauchler said his office gets about 70 records requests a week, including about 30 from pro se litigants who use the freedom-of-information process as a substitute for discovery. His office handles more requests than other DA offices, he told CFOIC, because it acts as a clearinghouse for information on pending cases rather than referring requesters to law enforcement agencies.
Regarding Zansberg’s request, “we should have taken a more proactive approach than just to say it’s closed out,” Brauchler said.
“We’re still figuring out the best and most efficient way to do this because I want people to have access to the information they’re entitled to. I’m not looking to keep information from people.”
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