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Tag: Tenth Circuit

Federal Appeals Court Rejects Anonymous Lawsuit Against Colorado Judicial Branch
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Federal Appeals Court Rejects Anonymous Lawsuit Against Colorado Judicial Branch

By: Michael Karlik | Colorado Politics The Denver-based federal appeals court concluded last month that a former attorney cannot mask her identity while suing the Colorado Judicial Department for alleged improprieties in her disability and disbarment proceedings. “Jane Roe,” representing herself, sued the Judicial Department and attorney regulators in 2024. She accused the defendants of discrimination, defamation, and violations of her constitutional rights in the proceedings that culminated in her disbarment. Because Roe did not have an attorney, Colorado’s federal trial court routed her complaint through its screening process for self-represented litigants. U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard T. Gurley advised Roe that there need to be “exceptional” circumstances for plain...
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ICE detention cases are surging in Colorado. The DOJ keeps losing the legal fight.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

ICE detention cases are surging in Colorado. The DOJ keeps losing the legal fight.

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Five people filed habeas corpus petitions challenging their Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention in all of Colorado federal court in 2024. One hundred five filed in 2025. Through June 15th of this year, 722 have filed, and the pace has held at more than 150 a month since March. Every one of those cases carries attorney fee exposure when the government loses. Of the cases resolved on the core detention question so far — spanning late 2025 and 2026 — Colorado judges granted the petition 248 times. Only one judge, Chief Judge Daniel Domenico, has ruled for the government on the merits — and he has done so repeatedly. And the same Justice Department that keeps losing keeps defending the legal theory behind the cases....
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The Poudre records: How a school “safe space” became a five-year parental-rights battle
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

The Poudre records: How a school “safe space” became a five-year parental-rights battle

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice It has been just over five years. No one has been held accountable. That is how Erin Lee describes what happened on May 4, 2021 and everything since. Federal litigation, Supreme Court petitions and public records battles have produced thousands of pages of emails, court filings and internal policies. "It's been an insane five years," she told RMV in May. “She came home and excitedly proclaimed she was transgender” The Lees moved from Florida to Wellington, Colorado in 2020. Erin says she and her husband were "faithless, left-leaning parents" with a close relationship with their daughter. In spring 2021 that daughter had just turned twelve and was enrolled at Wellington Middle School. Her homeroom and art teacher was Jenn...
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The question no court has answered: Was Tina Peters jailed for speech?
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

The question no court has answered: Was Tina Peters jailed for speech?

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Despite months and months of litigation in both state and federal courts, no appellate court has ruled on whether Tina Peters’ speech was constitutionally protected—or whether it was improperly used to justify keeping her behind bars. Her bond challenge stalled in Colorado’s appellate court, which dismissed it as untimely. She's also turned to federal court, where her habeas petition was rejected under the Younger abstention doctrine. Even after a certificate of appealability was denied at the district court level, her case now proceeds forward in the Tenth Circuit—still without an answer to the First Amendment question at its core. Peters’ case is now moving through two separate court systems.  Peters’ conviction is b...
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