The Colorado Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Colorado. Located in Denver,the court was established in 1876. It consists of a Chief Justice and six Associate Justices who are appointed by the Governor of Colorado from a list of candidates approved by a state judicial commission. Each justice faces a retention election two years after his or her appointment and every ten years thereafter,with mandatory retirement at age 72.
The Nebraska Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Nebraska. The court consists of a chief justice and six associate justices. Each justice is initially appointed by the governor of Nebraska;using the Missouri Plan,each justice is then subject to a retention vote for additional six-year terms. The six associate justices each represent a Supreme Court district;the chief justice is appointed at-large.
The Judiciary of Colorado is established and authorized by Article VI of the Colorado Constitution as well as the law of Colorado. The various courts include the Colorado Supreme Court,Colorado Court of Appeals,Colorado district courts,Colorado county courts,Colorado water courts,and municipal courts. The administration of the state judicial system is the responsibility of the Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court as its executive head and is assisted by several other commissions. In Denver,the county and municipal courts are integrated and administratively separate from the state court system.
The Colorado Court of Appeals is the intermediate-level appellate court for the state of Colorado. It was initially established by statute in 1891 and was reestablished in its current form in 1970 by the Colorado General Assembly under Article VI,Section 1 of the Constitution of Colorado.
Sean Connelly is an American attorney and former judge on the Colorado Court of Appeals. He is a former member of the U.S. Department of Justice trial team and the lead appellate prosecutor in the Oklahoma City bombing cases. He was appointed by then Colorado Governor Bill Ritter to the Colorado Court of Appeals in 2008 and did not seek retention of his appointment in 2011 and returned to private practice.
Capital punishment was abolished in Colorado in 2020. It was legal from 1974 until 2020 prior to it being abolished in all future cases.
Same-sex marriage has been legally recognized in Colorado since October 7,2014. Colorado's state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage was struck down in state district court on July 9,2014,and by the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado on July 23,2014. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals had already made similar rulings with respect to such bans in Utah on June 25 and Oklahoma on July 18,which are binding precedents on courts in Colorado. On October 6,2014,the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the Tenth Circuit cases,and the Tenth Circuit lifted its stay. On October 7,the Colorado Supreme Court and the Tenth Circuit cleared the way for same-sex marriages to begin in Colorado. Colorado was the 25th U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage.
Monica Marie Márquez is the chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court. Previously a deputy Colorado attorney general,she was appointed by Governor Bill Ritter to the Supreme Court in 2010 to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey. She was sworn in on December 10,2010.
Allison Lynn Hartwell Eid is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. She previously served as an associate justice of the Colorado Supreme Court.
Penny J. White is an American attorney and former judge who served as a judge on Tennessee's First Judicial Circuit,a judge for the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals,and a justice on the Tennessee Supreme Court. Former Justice White was the second woman to serve on the Tennessee Supreme Court. White was removed from office in a judicial retention election in 1996 as the only justice to lose a retention election in Tennessee under the Tennessee Plan. After her time in the judiciary,White served as a professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law until her retirement in 2022.
Miller v. Alabama,567 U.S. 460 (2012),was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole are unconstitutional for juvenile offenders. The ruling applied even to those persons who had committed murder as a juvenile,extending beyond Graham v. Florida (2010),which had ruled juvenile life without parole sentences unconstitutional for crimes excluding murder.
Nathan B. Coats is an American lawyer and jurist who served as the 46th chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court from 2018 to 2020. Coats had been appointed to the court in 2000,by Governor Bill Owens and served until his retirement in 2020. His views while serving on the court were considered conservative.
Brian Boatright is an American lawyer and judge,who served as the chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court from January 1,2021 to July 26,2024. He previously served as a judge on the Colorado District Court from 1999 to 2011.
Brinkman v. Long,and its companion case,McDaniel-Miccio v. Hickenlooper,are the lead state court cases on same-sex marriage in Colorado. Here,a Colorado district court found on July 9,2014,that the state's same-sex marriage ban violates same-sex couples' guarantees of equal protection and due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Brinkman and McDaniel-Miccio have been appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court,where they were dismissed following the dismissal of similar petitions by the U.S. Supreme Court on October 6,2014.
On December 14,1993,four employees were shot and killed and a fifth employee was seriously injured at a Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant in Aurora,Colorado,United States. The perpetrator,19-year-old Nathan Dunlap,a former employee of the restaurant,was frustrated about being fired five months prior to the shooting and sought revenge by committing the attack. He fled the scene of the shooting with stolen money and restaurant items. At the time,The Chuck E. Cheese Massacre was the deadliest mass shooting in Colorado,being surpassed 6 years later by the Columbine High School massacre.
Carlos Armando Samour Jr. is an associate justice of the Colorado Supreme Court and former chief judge of the Eighteenth Judicial District Court in Colorado. He is known for serving as the judge for the trial of James Eagan Holmes,the convicted perpetrator of the 2012 Aurora,Colorado shooting.
William W. Hood III is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Colorado,having served in this position since 2014.
Melissa Hart is a justice of the Colorado Supreme Court.
Rebecca R. Freyre is a Judge of the Colorado Court of Appeals.
Veronica Sophia Rossman is a Russian-born American lawyer serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
