Editor’s Note: Law Week Colorado edits court opinion summaries for style and, when necessary, length.
Joseph Howell lived with his mother in her ground-floor apartment in Denver. The apartment shares a front yard with other units. The yard is open to the street and unsecured by any fence or gate. A concrete walk connects the street to the front doorstep of the apartment. The doorstep is a concrete slab with no roof, walls or gate, and is one step up from the concrete walk. The apartment unit has a metal, barred security door that opens outward, followed by a solid interior door that opens inward.
One night, Howell got into a physical altercation with J.M. outside the apartment. At some point, Howell went inside the apartment, closing only the outer security door. J.M. remained outside on the doorstep, engaging verbally with Howell through the security door. Howell eventually fired a shot from inside the apartment. The bullet went between the metal bars of the security door and hit J.M. in the face as he stood on the doorstep. J.M. fled to the side of the apartment building. Howell exited the apartment and chased after J.M., firing one additional shot at J.M., missing him. The entire interaction was caught on video by a doorbell camera. J.M. survived his injuries.
Howell was charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder, among other crimes. Howell moved to dismiss, arguing the force-against-intruders statute immunized him from prosecution. Following a hearing, the district court denied the motion, finding that because J.M. never entered inside the threshold of the doorway, there was never an “unlawful entry into a dwelling,” and the statute doesn’t apply.
The Colorado Supreme Court held that an uncovered, unenclosed and unsecured doorstep isn’t part of a “dwelling” for the purposes of the force-against-intruders statute. A person who stood on a doorstep is a non-entrant, and the use of force against that person isn’t shielded by immunity under state law. The court discharged the rule to show cause.
City of Golden v. City of Aurora
This case concerns the Green Mountain Reservoir Administrative Protocol, an agreement among the parties to the Blue River Decree, the Colorado State Engineer’s Office and two other entities regarding the administration of water rights in and upstream of Green Mountain Reservoir, which is a component of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project.
The protocol was developed after decades of disputes among the U.S., the cities of Denver and Colorado Springs and others over how to implement the U.S.’s rights in Green Mountain Reservoir while maximizing water for upstream use under the Blue River Decree.
The parties to the protocol applied a determination of water rights to the water court for Water Division 5 requesting confirmation that the protocol is consistent with the Blue River Decree.
The City of Golden opposed the application, arguing that the protocol would cause injury to its rights upstream of Green Mountain Reservoir. The water court granted the U.S.’s motion for summary judgment, ruled that the protocol is consistent with the Blue River Decree and denied Golden’s motion for reconsideration. Golden appealed.
The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the water court’s ruling on summary judgment. First, it held that an assessment of injury isn’t required when a water rights holder merely requests confirmation that an administrative protocol implementing an existing decree is consistent with the terms of that decree.
Second, the court held that the protocol is consistent with the Blue River Decree, rejecting Golden’s claims that the protocol contradicts language in the Blue River Decree requiring the “fair” and “equitable” treatment of all parties with interests in the CBT. The court also rejected Golden’s assertion that the protocol violates the prior appropriation doctrine.
The court rejected Golden’s procedural arguments regarding the water court’s denial of its motion for reconsideration.
The Colorado Supreme Court held the Colorado Rule of Civil Procedure 107 as amended in 1995 doesn’t permit a party to serve process for indirect contempt by email. The court also held that substituted service under Rule 4(f) isn’t permitted in contempt proceedings.
It made the rule to show cause absolute and remanded the case.
The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article II, Section 7 of the Colorado Constitution protect against unreasonable searches. To conduct a lawful search of a premise, law enforcement agents must obtain a warrant that’s supported by probable cause and describes the area to be searched with particularity. These requirements limit searches in multi-dwelling buildings; a constitutional search extends only to the units or areas described in the warrant because those are the only parts of the building where the police have probable cause to support their search.
In this case, the Colorado Supreme Court held that police reasonably determined that the warrant they were executing extended to a previously unknown basement apartment when they learned, just as they began the search, that both dwellings used the same IP address. Because the IP address was the basis for the probable cause supporting the warrant, the court concluded that the search was reasonable.
City of Aspen v. Burlingame Ranch II
The Colorado Supreme Court clarified that its jurisprudence lays out a freestanding, self-sufficient framework for determining whether an action brought against a public entity is barred by the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act, depriving the trial court of subject matter jurisdiction. It held that the economic loss rule, a different and unrelated doctrine, has no part to play in this inquiry.
Where the sole question is whether the CGIA precludes a plaintiff’s claims, the court must consider the nature of the inquiry underlying the claims and the relief sought. If the inquiry arises out of tortious conduct or the breach of a duty arising in tort, and the relief seeks to compensate the plaintiff for that injury, it is barred by the CGIA. Even if such claims could arise in both tort and contract, they’re still barred, the court noted, because they “could lie in tort” for purposes of the CGIA.
The state’s high court found the economic loss rule doesn’t involve a jurisdictional question and cannot come to the rescue of an otherwise CGIA-barred claim.
It reversed the division’s judgment and remanded the case back to the district court.
The prosecution brought this interlocutory appeal challenging the district court’s order suppressing evidence that police officers found in Sean Terrance Johnson’s vehicle after stopping him for two traffic violations. The court suppressed the evidence based on its finding that the officers unlawfully prolonged their investigatory stop by waiting for a drug-detection dog to arrive to conduct a sniff of Johnson’s car for drugs.
Because the officers acquired probable cause to arrest Johnson for possession of drug paraphernalia during the stop and arrested him, the Colorado Supreme Court concluded that they no longer needed to justify the detention as part of an investigatory stop.
It reversed the court’s suppression order and remanded the case for the court to consider whether probable cause existed to search the vehicle following Johnson’s arrest.