Storyshare provided by Jeffrey A. Roberts, Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition

April 9, 2026

By Jeffrey A. Roberts
CFOIC Executive Director

Colorado’s Law Enforcement Integrity Act does not permit agencies to charge fees as a condition of releasing body-worn camera footage depicting possible misconduct by police officers, the Colorado Court of Appeals decided Thursday.

Affirming a 2024 district court ruling, a three-judge appellate panel said the “conspicuous absence of a fee provision in the Integrity Act is telling.”

“After all, the General Assembly knows how to include a fee provision if it intends one because the CCJRA [Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act] plainly allows a criminal justice agency discretion to charge reasonable fees to review and produce criminal justice records.”

The underlying lawsuit concerns the shooting and killing of 51-year-old Jeanette Alatorre by Boulder police in 2023. The city required Yellow Scene Magazine to pay $2,857.50 before it would release bodycam footage of the incident, arguing that the video is still a criminal justice record subject to the CCJRA’s fee provision.

But the disclosure of footage under the Law Enforcement Integrity Act is mandatory when there is a complaint of police misconduct, the appellate judges noted. “The command is clear, plain, and unconditioned on the payment of fees.”

“We’ve set a state precedent,” Yellow Scene publisher Shavonne Blades told the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition. “Municipalities can’t hide behind these fees any more to protect police misconduct. My hope is that there will be a domino effect in other states.”

“Today’s ruling reaffirms what should have been obvious to Boulder when this lawsuit was filed two years ago — police departments can’t use exorbitant fees to hide their officers’ misconduct behind a paywall,” said Matt Simonsen, the magazine’s attorney, in an emailed statement. Simonsen represents Yellow Scene along with attorneys Dan Williams and Ashlyn Hare.

Enacted in 2020 following the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Elijah McClain in Aurora, the Law Enforcement Integrity Act is separate from the CCJRA, which governs the release of most other criminal justice records.

Under the statute, all unedited video and audio recordings of incidents “in which there is a complaint of peace officer misconduct … through notice to the law enforcement agency involved in the alleged misconduct” must be released to the public no later than 21 days after a request is made. An agency can delay the release of video until 45 days from the date of an allegation of misconduct if the video “would substantially interfere with or jeopardize an active or ongoing investigation.”

The fee provision in the CCJRA doesn’t apply to the Integrity Act, Thursday’s opinion says, because the CCJRA limits the charging of fees to criminal justice records “requested pursuant to” the CCJRA. “Had the General Assembly intended for a fee provision to apply to any request for criminal justice records,” Judge Stephanie Dunn wrote for court, “it would not have amended the CCJRA in 2008 to expressly limit the fee provision to requests made under ‘this part 3’ in the statutes.”

“Because ‘this part 3’ refers only to the CCJRA, the fee provision on its face restricts its application to those requests for criminal justice records made under the CCJRA.”

The appeals court also rejected Boulder’s argument that that not allowing fees for footage under the Integrity Act would go against a 1991 law that makes state mandates optional unless the state reimburses local governments for their costs.

“[W]e don’t agree with Boulder that the unfunded mandate statute trumps the Integrity Act, rendering the mandatory obligation to produce requested recordings entirely optional,” Dunn wrote. “The opposite is true. That’s because the assumed lack of funding leaves the two statutes in irreconcilable conflict. This is so because the Integrity Act plainly requires disclosure of requested recordings, while the unfunded mandate statute says that compliance is optional when such a requirement is imposed without an accompanying state appropriation.”

“When faced with such an impasse, the Integrity Act — the more recent and specific of the two statutes — prevails over the older and more general unfunded mandate statute.”

The Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition and the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado had submitted an amicus brief last July asking the Court of Appeals to affirm the district court’s ruling.

Follow the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition on X and Bluesky. Like CFOIC’s Facebook page. Do you appreciate the information and resources provided by CFOIC? Please consider making a tax-deductible donation.

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The post Court of Appeals: Colorado law enforcement agencies cannot charge fees for bodycam footage of alleged officer misconduct appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Lawsuit brought by Miguel Zuniga challenging Home Rule is dismissed with prejudice

A lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of the Town of Erie’s new Home Rule Charter was dismissed on June 10 after a Boulder County District Court judge ruled the plaintiff’s claims did not meet the requirements for a claim of relief. 

The lawsuit was initially filed in December 2023 by Miguel Zuniga, who is married to the town’s former planning commissioner Kelly Zuniga. It named the Town of Erie, Mayor Justin Brooks, and four trustees as defendants. 

In the lawsuit, Zuniga claimed Erie’s Home Rule Charter was unconstitutional because it extended the terms of four Town Trustees from April 2024 to November 2024 to align with the local election schedule. The charter also shortened the terms of two other trustees from November 2026 to November 2024.

Zuniga cited a Colorado statute that states in part that “[n]o law shall extend the term of any elected public officer after his election or appointment nor shall the salary of any elected public officer be increased or decreased during the term of office for which he was elected.” He also cited multiple cases from the 19th and early 20th centuries as support for his argument.

Part of the Judge’s analysis from the dismissal.

Boulder County judge Robert R. Gunning was unpersuaded by Zuniga’s assertions because “these cases are a far cry from the undisputed facts in this litigation,” according to Gunning’s order to dismiss the case with prejudice, which means the case cannot be brought back to court.

Erie’s Home Rule Charter was approved in November 2023 after 56% of voters approved Ballot Question 3A. The charter became effective immediately following the certification of the election, which happened around November 20, 2023. Once the charter was effective, the town was “constitutionally authorized” to alter the terms of its elected officials, Gunning wrote.

Zuniga argued that the Erie “imported” the constitutional provisions prohibiting the extension of the Trustee terms and was therefore bound by it. He cited a brief meeting from November 2023 where Erie’s city attorney cited the same constitutional statute to prevent Trustees from receiving pay raises after the Home Rule charter was effective.

“This argument is unavailing,” Gunning argued because the statute Zuniga cited does not apply to municipalities.

“Plaintiff does not cite legal authority supporting his argument that a Town Attorney’s single invocation of an otherwise inapplicable constitutional provision sweeps the full provision into the Charter, Ordinances, or Town law,” Gunning continued.

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The post Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Challenging Erie’s New Town Charter appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

A high court ruling on a lawsuit originating from Grants Pass, Oregon, could effectively decide a similar lawsuit in Boulder, with major implications for how cities address homeless encampments.

By John Herrick, Boulder Reporting Lab (Via AP Storyshare)

A Boulder County District Court judge has paused a lawsuit challenging the City of Boulder’s camping ban while the U.S. Supreme Court considers a similar civil rights case stemming from Grants Pass, Oregon. The ruling from the nation’s highest court could have major implications for how cities across the country respond to encampments in public spaces amid rising homelessness.

The Boulder lawsuit seeks to halt enforcement of an ordinance that allows city officers to ticket homeless people for sleeping in public spaces when shelter is not accessible.

The case, filed by the ACLU of Colorado in May 2022 on behalf of several homeless people and a local nonprofit, Feet Forward, alleges that the city violated protections against cruel and unusual punishment in the Colorado Constitution by issuing citations to homeless people when they had nowhere else to sleep but in public spaces, among other allegations.

The legal dispute is a flashpoint in a broader debate over how the City of Boulder addresses rising homelessness and its associated impacts on public spaces. In November 2023, voters passed a ballot measure that amended city code to make tents and propane tanks near schools, sidewalks or multi-use paths “subject to prioritized removal.”

The Boulder lawsuit is currently scheduled for a trial in August 2024.

However, on April 10, 2024, Boulder County District Court Judge Robert R. Gunning issued an order halting proceedings on the case until the U.S. Supreme Court reaches a decision on a related case involving a similar ordinance in Grants Pass. The order means that neither side in the City of Boulder lawsuit will be able to file motions for discovery or request depositions for several months.

The Supreme Court is expected to issue its ruling on the Grants Pass case in June or early July, at which point the local lawsuit could proceed. Gunning said the Supreme Court ruling on the Grants Pass case could provide important precedent and “hold tremendous weight” in shaping a ruling on the Boulder case.

The Grants Pass lawsuit, Johnson v. City of Grants Pass, was filed in 2018 and alleges the city violated Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment by citing homeless people for sleeping in public spaces when they could not access shelter.

The Supreme Court held a hearing on the lawsuit on Monday, April 22. The questions posed by justices suggested that the court is relatively divided on the case. Much of the debate centered on whether homelessness is considered a state of being or form of conduct, and therefore, whether people can be punished for violating local ordinances that prohibit sleeping in public spaces.

Liberal justices appeared to side with the plaintiffs. For instance, Justice Elena Kagan said sleeping is a biological necessity, implying that people should not be punished for it. “Sleeping in public is kind of like breathing in public,” she said. By contrast, Chief Justice John Roberts offered an analogy involving someone who is hungry and in need of food. “If someone is hungry and no one is giving him food, can you prosecute him if he breaks into a store to get something to eat?” he asked a lawyer for the plaintiffs. Roberts also questioned whether the nine justices should be making “policy judgements” typically reserved for cities.

A ruling by the Supreme Court is unlikely to entirely resolve the case in Boulder. The Boulder lawsuit is based on similar civil rights protections in the Colorado Constitution, not the U.S. Constitution. That said, the wording regarding cruel and unusual punishment is similar.

The City of Boulder, which filed the motion to stay proceedings on the local lawsuit, said the Supreme Court’s decision will have a “dispositive impact on the validity of Plaintiffs’ remaining claim.” The plaintiffs argued the stay will “interfere with ongoing discovery that is critical to the timely resolution of this case.”

The City of Boulder spends about $3 million per year clearing out encampments of homeless people and cleaning up public spaces.

At least 171 people are experiencing homelessness in the City of Boulder, according to a point-in-time count by the city in July 2023. That number is likely higher, as people are often turned away from the city’s main shelter in North Boulder, which has a capacity of about 180 during certain severe weather conditions.

The post Boulder camping ban lawsuit is paused as judge awaits U.S. Supreme Court ruling appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.