By Don Knox, LAW WEEK COLORADO
Three finalists have been named for a Larimer County judgeship created by the retirement of C. Edward Stirman.
They are Robert A. Rand, a private practice Fort Collins attorney; Marco Joseph Scalise, a private practice Loveland attorney; and Matthew Richard Zehe, a Larimer County court magistrate who lives in Fort Collins.
Stirman is leaving his seat effective Nov. 8.
The 8th Judicial District Nominating Commission announced the finalists this afternoon. Gov. Bill Ritter has 15 days, including today, to make a final selection. The applications of all three finalists are published below.
Rand, 60, is a one-time Florida state prosecutor who moved from Tallahasee to Fort Collins in 2002. His practice handles 70 percent criminal matters and 30 percent bankruptcy matters. He was trial counsel in the child sex-abuse case of Dawn Triggs. The four other case citations on his application also were criminal matters. Rand received his juris doctor from Florida State University in 1980.
Scalise, who’s in his mid-40s and grew up in Arizona, handles 60 percent criminal cases and 40 percent family law matters. Among the experience he cited was a case where he represented a plaintiff who sought to invalidate her marriage because of a question of the alleged spouse’s wealth (the marriage was invalidated). Scalise also handled a personal-injury case on behalf of an accident victim against State Farm that ended with a verdict in favor of State Farm. Scalise received his juris doctor in 1993 from Thomas M. Cooley Law in Lansing, Mich.
Zehe, who’s 42, was for 10 years a state public defender in Fort Collins. He cited among cases he’s handled that of a former New Belgium brewery employee who allegedly threatened current employees. The case generated coverage in The Denver Post. Zehe didn’t indicate how he ruled on the company’s request for a protective order. Zehe, who attended high school and undergraduate college in Indiana and Illinois, received his juris doctor in 1995 from the University of Denver law school (now the Sturm College of Law).
The public may send comments on the candidates to judicial.appointments@state.co.us

Rand

Scalise

Zehe

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Judge_JD08 8-27-2009 J Stirman Nominees

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By Peter Rossi
LAW WEEK COLORADO
Editor’s Note: Statewide trial reporter Peter Rossi rounds up today’s court news.

A child who lived in the Aaron Thompson household Wednesday testified that Thompson beat him with belts and a triple layer coaxial television cable. He also said Thompson would hang him over the toilet by his feet.
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/20566459/detail.html

Texas Companies Countersue Division of Securities
Texas companies Gulf Coast Western LLC and HEI Resources Inc. are countersuing the Colorado Division of Securities.
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2009/08/24/daily39.html

Supreme Court To Rule on 54
The Colorado Supreme Court announced Wednesday that it will rule on whether Amendment 54, the Clean Government Initiative passed in the legislature, is constitutional. The amendment bans contributions from an organization or person with a no-bid or single-source government contracts greater than $100,000.
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2009/08/24/daily45.html
READ THE ORDER HERE: http://www.statebillnews.com/?p=2324

Appeals Court Rules On Fourth Amendment Case
Mountain View police officers didn’t clearly violate the Fourth Amendment by pulling over motorists for infractions committed outside their jurisdiction, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week in Swanson v. Mountain View.
http://www.statebillnews.com/?p=2245

Man Indicted For Threats To Abortion Doctor
Donald Hertz was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury on charges of making telephone threats to Dr. Warren Hern’s office. Authorities believe Hern was targeted because he is an abortion provider.
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_13208758

Cocaine Peddler Gets 10 Years
Weld District Court Judge Gilbert Gutierrez sentenced Joseph Castillo to 10 years in prison for selling cocaine to an undercover police officer on two occasions.
http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20090826/NEWS/908269964/1002/NONE&parentprofile=1001

Juvenile Gets Probation For Assault
Garfield County Judge Paul Metzger sentenced a 17-year-old boy to two years supervised probation for his role in an assault of two women two years ago. Six other juveniles have been convicted on similar charges for their role in the assault.
http://www.postindependent.com/article/20090827/VALLEYNEWS/908269995/1083&ParentProfile=1074

Mercado’s Friend Testifies In Murder Trial
Calvin Bennett, who defense attorneys say investigators ignored as a suspect, testified Wednesday in the Pedro Mercado capital murder trial. He did not identify Mercado as the shooter of Stephen Marble, a rival gang member.
http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20090827/NEWS01/908270334

Have a trial you want to tell us about? Do you have questions about our future trial coverage? Send your queries to Peter Rossi at prossi@circuitmedia.com.

Source: Ament Campaign

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LAW WEEK COLORADO
The Colorado Supreme Court will decide whether Amendment 54, “The Clean Government Act,” is constitutional.
Passed as a ballot initiative in 2008, Amendment 54 bans political donations from people who have received sole-source government contracts. A group of nonprofit leaders filed a lawsuit in Denver District Court contesting the amendment’s constitutionality, arguing it violated the right to free speech.
On July 17, Judge Catherine Lemon granted a preliminary injunction that stopped the amendment from taking effect until an appellate court ruled on it. On Aug. 21, the Colorado Supreme Court agreed to review the case.

09sa224 Order

Nominating Panels

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By Matt Masich, LAW WEEK COLORADO
Police officers from the tiny Denver suburb of Mountain View didn’t clearly violate the Fourth Amendment by pulling over motorists for infractions committed outside their jurisdiction, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week in Swanson v. Mountain View.
A group of motorists, represented by Althea Licht of Killmer Lane & Newman, filed a civil rights lawsuit against Mountain View in the U.S. District Court for Colorado, alleging that it was unlawful seizure for the town’s officers to make traffic stops in Denver. Mountain View, represented by Eric Ziporin of Senter Goldfarb & Rice, made a request for qualified immunity that Judge Robert Blackburn denied, prompting the town to make an interlocutory appeal.
The 10th Circuit panel, comprising Judges Harris Hartz, Stephanie Seymour and Timothy Tymkovich, reversed the trial court and granted qualified immunity. The panel found that, although Colorado law does not authorize police to make traffic stops outside their jurisdiction, that has little bearing on the alleged Fourth Amendment violations. Qualified immunity must be granted, the panel held, because plaintiffs did not show that the traffic stops were clearly in violation of U.S. Supreme Court and 10th Circuit precedent.
The case now returns to trial court.
Read the circuit’s opinion here:

08-1105

Police officers from the Town of Mountain View used to pull over motorists for traffic infractions that occurred in Denver. Several motorists filed a

By David Singer, SPECIAL TO EDUCATION NEWS COLORADO
In late October 2008 I took a week-long research trip across the East Coast visiting high performing urban charter schools. The SEED School in D.C., KIPP Academy in the Bronx and Williamsburg Collegiate in Brooklyn were just a few of the life changing stops I made.
“It can be done,” I continued to say to myself as I witnessed low-income minority students deeply engaged in learning, obtaining professional class values and preaching the necessity of a college degree. During my travels I was reading “Sweating the Small Stuff,” David Whitman’s eye-opening analysis of the new “paternalistic” no-excuse schools effectively serving the most disadvantaged youth in our nation.
It all started to click. Then came Paul Tough’s “Whatever It Takes,” Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom’s “No Excuses,” Jay Mathew’s “Work Hard, Be Nice,” and Rafe Esquith’s “There are No Shortcuts.” Visiting with Chris Gibbons, founder and principal of West Denver Prep, and peering into the highly structured, results-oriented classrooms at his school added another layer to my already piled-high cake. A new vision of urban education began to emerge.
Charging back to Manual High School, re-invigorated with a new understanding of what urban education could look like, I pummeled my students with a sense of urgency they’d never before experienced and I’d never before taught with.
“Every minute of every day counts…there is no alternative to hard work…all of us will learn!” All classroom decisions were made based on the results of their assessment data, instruction was high energy with high purpose, 85 minutes of learning time finally meant 85 minutes of learning time. You could walk in and taste focus in the air.
Then came August. CSAP scores were released. My students ranked in the 64th percentile for growth in the state, not just compared to their free and reduced lunch peers, but compared to everyone. Many students fell in the top 90th percentile, meaning they had made tremendous gains in our year together. Despite their impressive growth, however, a meager 9 percent of them were classified as proficient or advanced. 65th percentile in growth and only 9 percent were actually proficient.
The reality of Manual High School and its students is undeniably clear. Students entering 9th grade four and five grade levels behind cannot catch up to their middle- and upper-class peers. We can provide phenomenal instruction, optimize budgetary use, create unbelievable interventions, keep them for a longer school day and year, and love them to death, but catching up both their academic abilities and character to ensure their success at a competitive four-year university and the demanding world beyond is nearly out of our reach.
Believing these kids deserved better (and that I could make a broader impact), I applied for and was accepted into the Building Excellent Schools Fellowship out of Boston. During this year-long intensive training program I’ll be instructed on all components of running a high performing urban charter (fundraising, community outreach, facility acquisition, fiscal sustainability, board development, curriculum, instruction, assessment, etc.) while performing action research in schools across the country that are getting the job done.
The time has come to help solve the “Manual Dilemma.” The only way to ensure the ceiling is raised for the students at my beloved high school is to raise the floor. Over the next two years, one in the rigorous training with BES and one planning and preparing for my new school’s opening, I will be doing everything possible to develop a high-performing pre-kindergarten through eighth grade charter in Northeast Denver.
Aptly named “Make it Happen Academy,” the school’s purpose will be to ensure that the achievement gap is eliminated and that children from low-income families receive four-year college degrees and thrive in the world beyond.
Last week I boarded a plane to Boston for my fellowship orientation. Filled with ideas, questions, and some “can I really pull this off” trepidation, I find myself surging with energy as I embark on my new journey.
Teaching for six years, the last two at Manual, has been an amazing experience, one that I will always cherish and take lessons from. It’s those experiences that brought me to this point, the point of realization that if we don’t do something about the opportunities for young children in our community then we’re allowing for the maintenance of the status quo – low-quality education with low-quality results.
When asked at a recent lunch event how he maintains his superhuman-like efforts in spite of the endless number of obstacles he faces, Geoffrey Canada, CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone, was quick to point to his “unyielding optimism.”
When I think about the million plus dollars I want to raise to ensure my teachers a higher salary and each of my students an Education IRA, the facility I have yet to secure for the school, the lack of knowledge I have in early childhood brain development, the staff that remains unknown, the food service issues that will inevitably arise as we attempt to feed the kids three nutritious meals a day, the exhausting eleven-month school year I plan to institute with longer school days and Saturday programs, and the countless other road blocks that I will hit, I am forced to think like Canada.
Unyielding optimism isn’t a choice, not if we want to change the lives of an entire generation. It’s time to do whatever it takes.
David Singer taught math at Manual High School in 2007-08 and 2008-09. He is now a fellow in the Build Excellent Schools program.

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