Colorado Politics: Colorado’s second-highest court last week ruled that problems with livestreaming technology during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic did not violate a defendant’s constitutional right to a public trial if observers were still free to watch in the physical courtroom.

The Sixth Amendment guarantees the criminally accused the right to a public trial. In recent years, the Court of Appeals has had to interpret that right in light of the livestreaming protocols Colorado courts employed during pandemic-era restrictions. Where violations occurred, judges had closed only their physical courtrooms to spectators.

A Denver jury convicted Jeffrey Sloan of killing Yasir Hasan and Mark Karla by running a red light and colliding with his victims on Colfax Ave. Karla was the son-in-law of then-Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers. Sloan received a sentence of 72 years in prison.

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