Editor’s Note: Law Week Colorado edits court opinion summaries for style and, when necessary, length.
People v. Chapman
Toby Chapman is charged, among other things, with multiple counts of violating a protection order and stalking based on his alleged contacts and attempted contacts with a district court judge in the 8th Judicial District. Chapman filed a motion for appointment of a special prosecutor, citing potential conflicts of interest involving a chief deputy district attorney for the 8th Judicial District, Brian Hardouin, and the judge. In support of his motion, Chapman highlighted Hardouin’s frequent appearances before the judge, his leadership role in the District Attorney’s Office, the fact that the 8th Judicial District Court bench had recused itself from the case, and the proximity of the District Attorney’s Office to the judge’s chambers. The prosecution countered that none of the circumstances that Chapman identified constitute the type of special circumstances that would warrant disqualification.
At the hearing on the motion, Chapman additionally contended that there was an appearance of impropriety because future rulings in the judge’s courtroom could be affected if Hardouin garnered favor with the judge by obtaining a favorable outcome in this case. Hardouin responded that an appearance of impropriety is no longer in the disqualification statute and is not a reason to remove a district attorney’s office from a case.
The senior judge assigned to the case initially denied the motion, but two days later changed course, holding that “best practice dictates, and the law requires, an appointment of a special prosecutor when a judge is an alleged victim and the prosecutor, its superior[,] and its underlings appear in front of the judge.” “[S]pecial circumstances exist,” the court continued, “which render it unlikely that [Mr. Chapman] [would] receive a fair trial if the case is prosecuted by” the District Attorney’s Office.
This appeal, which was filed by the 8th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, challenged a decision by the district court disqualifying the entire District Attorney’s Office from prosecuting the pending case against Chapman.
The Colorado Supreme Court concluded that the court erred in granting Chapman’s motion and reversed the court’s ruling.
Specifically, the state Supreme Court found that the district court based its decision on the routine performance of duties by Hardouin and the District Attorney’s Office before the victim’s court. The fact that Hardouin and other prosecutors in the District Attorney’s Office appear in front of the judge who is the alleged victim does not constitute special circumstances of the type contemplated by the applicable law. The court found that this working relationship doesn’t rise to the level of the extreme special circumstances needed to trigger the disqualification statute.
People v. Nkongolo
Patrick Nkongolo has been charged with multiple counts of sexual assault on a child, A.K., as a pattern of abuse. In this interlocutory appeal, the prosecution challenged the trial court’s pretrial order, which suppressed a text message conversation between Nkongolo and A.K.’s father, D.K., that occurred on Nov. 15, 2023. The trial court concluded that the statements Nkongolo made during that conversation were the product of police coercion, which rendered them involuntary and inadmissible at trial.
D.K. initiated the conversation at the behest of law enforcement, and a police officer guided D.K. through the questioning. So, it’s undisputed that D.K. acted as an agent of the police during the Nov. 15 conversation.
The Colorado Supreme Court concluded, however, that D.K.’s conduct wasn’t coercive. And even if it had been, the court found this alleged coercion didn’t play a significant role in inducing Nkongolo’s side of the text exchange.
The state Supreme Court reversed the portion of the trial court’s order that suppressed Nkongolo’s Nov. 15 statements.
County Commissioners of Boulder County and City of Boulder v. Suncor Energy USA Inc.
Although it noted this case presents substantial issues of global import, the question before the Colorado Supreme Court was narrow: whether the district court erred in concluding that the common law tort claims brought by the County Commissioners of Boulder County and the City of Boulder against Exxon Mobil Corporation, Suncor Energy USA, Inc., Suncor Energy Sales, Inc., and Suncor Energy Inc., may proceed under state law.
Specifically, Boulder asserted claims for public and private nuisance, trespass, unjust enrichment and civil conspiracy, and it sought damages for the role that Suncor’s production, promotion, refining, marketing and sale of fossil fuels has allegedly played in exacerbating climate change, which, in turn, has purportedly caused harm to Boulder’s property and residents. The defendants contended that these claims are preempted by federal law.
The Colorado Supreme Court concluded that Boulder’s claims are not preempted by federal law and the district court didn’t err in declining to dismiss those claims. The court discharged the order to show cause and remanded this case to the district court. In doing so, the court noted it expressed no opinion on the ultimate viability of the merits of Boulder’s claims.
People v. Crawford
Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted a provision of Colorado’s stalking statute and explained that a defendant couldn’t be held criminally liable for stalking based on speech containing “true threats” unless the prosecution proved that the defendant had at least a reckless mens rea — that is, that the defendant “consciously disregarded a substantial risk that his communications would be viewed as threatening violence.”
In this original proceeding, the district court extended Counterman v. Colorado’s holding to a case in which the prosecution’s stalking charge was not based in any way on the content of the alleged stalker’s speech, but instead on the repetitive nature of his efforts to contact or observe the victim.
After considering these different types of stalking charges, the Colorado Supreme Court held that the charges the prosecution brought here, carefully based on repeated actions — including contacts (i.e., texts, phone calls and emails) but not their contents — don’t require proof that the defendant communicated or otherwise acted with a reckless state of mind.
The state Supreme Court made the order to show cause absolute, reversed the portion of the district court’s orders expanding Counterman’s holding and remanded the case.
Lucas Trenshaw and Theresa Gardner v. Eugene Jennings and All State Enterprise, Inc.
In this original proceeding, the Colorado Supreme Court held that when medical records contain information provided by a patient to a physician during the course of receiving treatment for an injury, the records are protected by the physician-patient privilege. Such documents fall within the purview of Section 13-90-107(1)(d) of the Colorado Revised Statutes, because they contain information “that was necessary to enable [the treating physician] to prescribe or act for the patient.”
The information shared by a patient with a treating physician may include facts about the underlying incident that led to the injuries sustained. A patient cannot immunize from disclosure relevant facts about the underlying incident by simply disclosing them to a treating physician or anyone else with whom the patient may have a confidential relationship. Those facts are discoverable, including through interrogatories, requests for admission and at a deposition. But the state Supreme Court found the medical records themselves are privileged because they contain the patient’s communications with the treating physician about how the injuries were sustained.
The court found that the district court shouldn’t have reviewed (even in camera) a screenshot of a portion of the defendant’s medical records, much less conducted a sentence-by-sentence analysis of a handful of sentences to determine whether the information in each sentence was necessary for the defendant’s treating physician to prescribe or act on his behalf. The state Supreme Court asserted that a standard that would only protect information in medical records that a court, in hindsight, concludes was necessary for a physician to have acted or prescribed on behalf of a patient flies in the face of jurisprudence and is, in any event, infeasible.
Because the district court erred, the Supreme Court made absolute the order to show cause, and remanded the matter.