Colorado Court of Appeals to hear arguments at Pueblo Community College on April 25

Friday, April 21, 2023
DENVER – A division of the Colorado Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in two cases at Pueblo Community College on Tuesday, April 25, 2023, before an audience of students. Limited public seating will be available.

The visit is part of the Colorado Judicial Branch’s Courts in the Community, an outreach program the Colorado Supreme Court and Court of Appeals initiated on Law Day (May 1), 1986. The Courts in the Community program was developed to give Colorado students insight into the Colorado judicial system and illustrate how disputes are resolved in a democratic society. These are not mock proceedings. The Court will hear arguments in actual cases from which it will issue opinions. The court generally issues opinions within a few weeks of the arguments.

The 22 judges of the Colorado Court of Appeals sit in divisions of three judges to hear cases. Judges hearing the cases at Pueblo Community College are Anthony J. Navarro, Ted C. Tow III, and Timothy J. Schutz.

The two cases are: 

• 22CA774, Chad Burmeister v. Kyle Clark and Tegna Inc.: Chad Burmeister asked the Court of Appeals to review a trial court’s decision to dismiss his defamation lawsuit against Kyle Clark and Clark’s employer, KUSA-TV, which is owned and operated by Tegna Inc. Burmeister sued after Clark reported on his television show on Jan. 7, 2021, that Burmeister had participated in the riot at the U.S. Capitol the previous day. Burmeister alleged the report was false, harmed his reputation, and caused him humiliation and mental anguish. He argued that while in Washington, he listened to President Trump speak to supporters near the White House before marching to the Capitol, but he said he never entered the building or engaged in violent acts. Clark argued he accurately reported on Burmeister’s own online postings about the Jan. 6 events at the Capitol, and that the trial court properly dismissed Burmeister’s lawsuit after finding that Burmeister failed to show he was reasonably likely to produce clear and convincing evidence of material falsity or actual malice on Clark’s part, both of which were required for Burmeister to prevail. Burmeister argued in briefs that the trial court applied the wrong standard to his case and should have allowed the case to proceed.
• 20CA2145, The People of the State of Colorado v. Luis Toro-Ospina: Luis Toro-Ospina is appealing his convictions on two counts of felony menacing and his one-year prison sentence on several grounds, including his argument that the trial court improperly denied his challenge to the prosecution’s dismissal of two potential jurors. In briefs filed with the Court of Appeals, Toro-Ospina’s attorney argued that the prosecution dismissed a Black man and a Latina woman from the pool of potential jurors for reasons that were not race-neutral, and that the trial court improperly rejected the defense attorney’s challenges to those dismissals, known as Batson challenges. Toro-Ospina’s attorney also argued the trial court improperly denied the defense’s request to ask about potential jurors’ race on questionnaires they were asked to fill out. The attorney for the prosecution argued in its brief that the prosecutor offered a race-neutral reason for the challenges and said there was no error in the trial court’s refusal to add a race question to the jury questionnaire because a juror’s race is irrelevant to their fitness to serve.

The proceedings will begin at 11 a.m. Tuesday, April 25, at Pueblo Community College’s Hoag Theater (900 W. Orman Ave. in Pueblo). A question-and-answer session, during which students may ask questions of the attorneys, will follow the arguments in each case. At the conclusion of the second argument, the students also will have the opportunity to participate in a question-and-answer session with the Court of Appeals judges.

There will be a limited number of seats for the public. Video recordings of the two arguments will be available online within one to two days of the arguments at http://www.courts.state.co.us/Courts/Court_Of_Appeals/Oral_Arguments/Index.cfm.

Editor’s Note:

The documents related to these two cases are available at: https://www.courts.state.co.us/Courts/Education/Materials.cfm?s=Spring&y=2023

Additional information on the Courts in the Community program is available at: http://www.courts.state.co.us/Courts/Education/Community.cfm

News media organizations interested in recording the arguments may contact Jon Sarché at the State Court Administrator’s Office (contact information below). The following pages contain information about expanded media coverage.

We will be reserving seats for journalists. Please contact Jon Sarché at jon.sarche@judicial.state.co.us or at 720-625-5811 if you plan to attend.