Colo. Supreme Court Issues New Directive to Reign in Rogue Distr. Courts' Censorship Policies

One such “rogue court” was Jefferson County Combined Court (the First Judicial District).  The announcement, appearing in the First Judicial District Newsletter, seems to indicate that the Chief Judge, R. Brooke Jackson, has issued a new policy, rescinding his previous order restricting entire categories of cases from the public. One KnowYourCOURTS.com contributor wrote a request to the Chief Judge one year ago, asking him to reconsider the standing order.  In a, perhaps, uncharacteristically courteous response, he declined.

  Although the First Judicial District appears to be reluctantly scaling back its blanket restrictions in compliance with the amended directive, others remain in place, such as the Chief Judge of the Fourteenth Judicial District (covering Grand, Moffat and Routt Counties), Michael A. O’Hara’s June 2006 order, nearly identical to last year’s JeffCo order, restricting entire categories of cases  –most notably domestic relations cases– from the public.  As such, there is no way to monitor the conduct of the judges or of their court-appointed cronies, child and family investigators, parenting coordinators and other parasitoid pepsis sp. wasps of Colorado’s divorce industry).²

In so doing, the recitals of O’Hara’s Order declare that such a “blanket order” is authorized by § 4.60 of [the original version of] CJD 05-01, despite the fact that Justice Bender has stated that it’s, “more restrictive than what we want it to be . . . We don’t want to be in that posture of having cases sealed, closed or inaccessible” and that Steve Zansberg, a attorney specializing in Colorado open records law, has unequivocally said that, “Their starting position is that all these cases are closed unless you ask for them to be opened . . . That’s unconstitutional.”

It’s not uncommon for municipal, state or federal executive or legislative branches to pass laws or ordinances that are unconstitutional and, which can be subject to suits for injunctive or declaratory relief.  Should we not expect a higher standard of constitutional respect and familiarity from our judiciary?

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¹ Dennis Huspeni of the Gazette covered this story in April of last year in, Court Cases Need More Accessibility, Critics Say; see also the Denver Post, Judicial Districts Object to Public Access to Files; and Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press, Reporters Committee Censures Colorado Courts’ Blanket File Sealing.
² “If these records are unavailable to the public, we will have no effective means to determine how the judicial branch in general and individual judges in particular handle dissolution of marriage, child custody and child support matters.” -former Gov. Owens veto message regarding a bill in 2002 that would have sealed judicial documents in divorce, child custody and child support cases.