The Colorado Supreme Court will review whether appellate judges wrongly decided the Peace Officer Standards and Training Board (POST) is a criminal justice agency in a 2023 ruling that kept the state’s database of law enforcement officers confidential.
A judge will decide whether disciplinary records about the former police chief of Elizabeth are “personnel files” exempt from disclosure under the Colorado Open Records Act.
Lawmakers did not, however, tackle the No. 1 barrier to obtaining public records in Colorado — exorbitant fees. And that problem will only get worse on July 1, 2024, when inflation boosts the maximum-allowable hourly rate to process CORA requests from $33.58 to a whopping $40 or $41.
In a victory for the Aurora Sentinel, the Colorado Court of Appeals reversed a district court ruling and ordered Aurora to publicly release the recording of an executive session in which city council members ended censure proceedings against a fellow councilor.
Are people who want books banned or reclassified library “users” whose identities are protected by Colorado law? The Colorado Court of Appeals said yes in an opinion issued last month, but now the editor of the Crested Butte News wants the state Supreme Court to review and reverse that ruling.
A judge’s decision to restrict access to records in the case of a cardiologist accused of sexually assaulting and drugging victims does not comply with a 2021 Colorado rule meant to shine a light on why courts sometimes keep documents from the public in criminal proceedings, news organizations argue in new filings.
Colorado’s library-user privacy statute shields the identities of people who want public library books banned or reclassified, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled, upholding a 2022 Gunnison County District Court decision.
The refusal to release this information makes Colorado one of just 15 states that keep this type of police officer data secret, according to a nationwide reporting project, preventing the press and public from adequately monitoring the state’s oversight of wandering or second-chance officers.
A Colorado law that went into effect in 2021 sets a timetable for the public release of law enforcement body-worn camera footage of incidents “in which there is a complaint of peace officer misconduct.” But if an officer shoots and kills someone, and no one formally complains, does the footage-release provision apply?
Librarians in Colorado need guidance from the Colorado Court of Appeals on whether the state’s library-user privacy statute protects the identities of people who want books banned or reclassified, a lawyer for the Gunnison County Library District director told a panel of appellate judges.
