Shrouded justice: Thousands of Colorado court cases hidden from public view on judges' orders Because of this story, the Colorado judicial system is changing the way it handles suppressed cases. Thousands of court cases across Colorado - hundreds of them involving violent felonies — are hidden from public view, concealed behind judges' orders that can remain in effect for years, The Denver Post has found. More than 6,700 civil and criminal cases have been restricted from public access since 2013, usually by judges who agreed to a request from prosecutors or defense lawyers to shield them, The Post found. Of those, 3,076 are still under suppression orders that keep the details away from the public - 345 are felony criminal cases — as they work their way through the legal ... That means someone could be arrested, charged, convicted and sent to prison in Colorado without anyone seeing why, how or where, and whether the process was fair. Although courtrooms remain open to the public, including hearings for suppressed cases, the only way to know when a hearing is to occur is to be there when it is scheduled. A Denver Post reporter happened to attend one hearing in which a murder suspect pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and no public record of the event existed. The only way to learn the defendant's name was to be there ... But there are other reasons as well. The Post found one criminal case - that of a board member and part-owner of the Broomfield Academy charged and convicted of felony sexual assault of a child and misdemeanor child abuse — in which prosecutors requested and received a suppression order to avoid publicity. The case remains suppressed. It found another - of a member of the Adams County 14 school board eventually convicted with attempting to lure a child for sex — in which the judge ordered the suppression at the outset, without anyone even asking for it, because the judge "had concerns about releasing information," records obtained by The Post show. The case remains suppressed. The case of convicted murderer Clifford Galley, 28, was one of a number The Post found that remained suppressed long after the defendant went to prison. Galley was sentenced to 169 years in prison and won't see freedom in his lifetime. ... As well with Jeffrey Falk, 54, a former ThunderRidge High School math teacher sentenced in June 2016 to 21 years in prison for victimizing young boys and collecting “a library of child porn.” He had pleaded guilty in Arapahoe County district court to three counts of sexual exploitation of a child two months earlier. His arrest in 2015 made headlines, but the four cases against him were immediately suppressed until he was sentenced. No other stories were published until after he pleaded guilty, was sentenced, and prosecutors later made a public announcement in June 2016. One of the four cases ... Continue reading... http://www.dailycamera.com/news/ci_...ce-thousands-colorado-court-cases-hidden-from
