Recently retired Denver attorney Marc Flink spent decades fighting alongside news organizations for public access to the records and workings of government — and played a leading role in some of the most consequential First Amendment cases in recent Colorado history.
For Sunshine Week 2023, the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition hosted an insightful discussion about recent attempts to remove or relocate books in public libraries and school districts in Colorado and around the country.
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.
A 2021 Colorado Court of Appeals opinion on what lawyers can tell the press about pending class-action lawsuits will chill “legitimate speech that allows the media to keep the public informed on matters of significant public concern,” the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition and news associations argue in a brief filed recently with the Colorado Supreme Court.
The National Freedom of Information Coalition Board elected Jeff Roberts, executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, to the office of president.
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.
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.
