In 1822, James Madison explained why citizens need information: "A popular government,'' he wrote, "without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.''  As a natural corollary to this truth, individuals and cohorts in positions of power do not want this information to be freely available.  For example, Colorado's Division of Regulatory Agencies contacted this site and misrepresented a statute in an effort to browbeat us into removing content. (Click here).  Similarly, the Committee on Pro Se Parties, consisting of justices, attorneys and legislators, complained in their 1999 Report that, "the 'information highway' has prompted many potential litigants to feel capable of representing themselves," which they generally regarded as a scourge to the court system and legal community. (Id. at 36).

"In a popular government, the people should take an active interest in the Constitution that gives form to their politics and protection to their liberties; they should not be discouraged from doing so by talk that the Constitution is some obscure document, capable of being understood only by august justices on the Supreme Court."  Rossum & Tarr, American Constitutional Law: The Structure of Government (7th ed., Thomson & West, 2007)

Accordingly, this web site is a consumer advisory service, intended to provide selected information that is of interest to citizens in Colorado about what takes place in their courts. `Though the selection criteria of the information obtained and reproduced here is not purported to be content-neutral, the information presented here will be factual and generally limited to the actual filings.  These filings, which are already public record, will consist of pleadings, affidavits, transcripts, exhibits, letters written to state government agencies, orders and other content that is protected under the Noerr-Pennington doctrine and the petitioning aspect of the First Amendment.

Although KnowYourCOurts.com, as a publisher, takes no responsibility for content authored by third parties, commentary may be subject to screening or removal to militate against defamation liability for the owners, administrators, hosts, contributors and viewers of this site. Moreover, this site does not exist as a forum to disparage or sully the reputation of any government official, officer of the court, public servant, litigant or any other person.

Although, the administrators and contributors to this site will make every effort to faithfully reproduce any document selected for posting, either in its entirety or excerpted, they make no guarantee, express or implied, as to the completeness, likeness or accuracy of the documents, especially whereas discrepancies may be attributable to mistake, inadvertence, fraud (on the part of a contributor), typographical error or optical character recognition fault. This disclaimer applies to all documents, exhibits, transcripts, notes, memoranda, letters, photographs and other written or digitally imaged documents appearing hereon.