Colorado House Bill 24-1090 was introduced to the House Judiciary Committee on Jan. 23. The bill was described in the committee hearing as a technical fix to unintended consequences caused by the implementation of Colorado Senate Bill 23-075.
SB23-075 removed the limitation that a child be a victim of an enumerated sexual offense for the child’s name and identifying information to be deleted from a criminal justice record released to the public and required the name and identifying information of a child who witnesses a criminal offense to be deleted from criminal justice records released to the public.
In the committee hearing for HB24-1090, James Karbach from the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender, told the representatives the bill had the consequence of removing access to court records that had identifying information of a child victim or witness in the Colorado Courts E-Filing system for Colorado public defenders and the Office of the Alternate Defense Counsel.
Karbach, along with Darren Cantor of OADC, told the committee the lack of access was impacting both of their organizations, particularly when it came to determining potential conflicts of interest in representation for public defenders and the assignment of an alternate defense counsel in these cases.
Witnesses from the city of Arvada, Colorado Municipal League, Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition and Colorado Counties also testified their work was affected by SB23-075.
HB24-1090, if passed, would permit the release of unredacted records to the named victim or victim’s designee and permit the release of unredacted records to the public defender and OADC offices.
The bill passed the committee on its first reading by a vote of 9-3. Republican Reps. Ken Degraaf, Ryan Armagost and Gabe Evans made up the no votes.