Colorado Supreme Court announced on Monday will consider whether a juvenile defendant who was tried and convicted of murder as an adult was entitled to have his case dismissed because the government engaged in selective prosecution based on race.

At least three of the seven members of the court must agree to accept a case on appeal.

The justices narrowly rejected a second appeal that questioned the viability of a campaign finance complaint that was filed well outside the state statute’s statute of limitations.

Varied treatment

Lloyd Chavez IV, a student at Cherokee Trail High School, died in May 2019 after four teenagers tried to rob him during a meeting to buy boating supplies. It was Demaria Mitchell who shot Chavez, but jurors also convicted Kenneth Alfonso Gallegos of felony murder for his part in the robbery.

The other two defendants cooperated with law enforcement, and Arapahoe County prosecutors renewed those sets of charges in juvenile court. The defendants, who were Hispanic or white, later pleaded guilty and served only two years in juvenile prison.

Mitchell and Gallegos, who are black, did not receive similar offers from prosecutors. Both are serving life sentences.

Mitchell initially tried to dismiss the charges on the grounds that prosecutors violated his equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, the inability to transfer his case to juvenile court was based on Mitchell’s race.

District Judge Ben L. Leutwyler disagreed, noting that Mitchell was not in the same position as the two non-black defendants.

“There is evidence to support a finding that Mr. Mitchell is the participant who shot and killed Mr. Chavez,” he wrote. “A consideration of this fact alone is sufficient to find that defendant is not similarly situated to persons who drove to the scene but did not otherwise participate in the robbery and killing of Mr. Chavez.”

A three-judge panel of the state Court of Appeals agreed with Leutwyler’s reasoning that there was no discriminatory effect from the prosecutor’s decision-making. It did not address the second prong of a selective prosecution claim: whether the prosecutors had a discriminatory purpose.

Mitchell appealed to the Supreme Court, pointing out that all four defendants were originally charged with felony murder at the start of the case.

“In other words, even if the prosecution’s sole theory was that each participant in the robbery demonstrated equal intent to commit the robbery and resulting murder, only the two black co-defendants deserve the harsher penalties of adult court proceedings,” he wrote the lawyer. Patrick R. Henson.

The Supreme Court will consider this argument. Later this month, the justices will hear arguments in a separate appeal involving Gallegos’ beliefs.

The case is Mitchell v. People.

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The court was also one vote away from taking up a second case. Suzanne Taheri was the unsuccessful 2020 Republican nominee for the seat now held by Sen. Chris Kolker, D-Littleton. After Taheri declared her candidacy in 2019, she filed her federal tax return. In May 2020, a claimant who consulted with a representative of the progressive advocacy group ProgressNow Colorado filed a campaign finance complaint against Taheri based on her disclosure.

The law requires that campaign finance complaints be filed within 180 days after a person “knew or should have known, through the exercise of reasonable diligence, of the alleged violation.” In Taheri’s case, the complaint came 263 days after the alleged disclosure of her poor finances.

Although Taheri believed he had met Colorado’s campaign finance requirements, an administrative law judge concluded that was not the proper form of disclosure. Moreover, he believed that the complaint was filed within the statutory window. Taheri appealed, but was ordered to pay a fine of $850.

A panel of three judges for the Court of Appeal later confirmed the finding that the plaintiff exercised reasonable diligence in discovering and reporting the breach despite it occurring outside the 180-day window.

The Legislature “chose to adopt a statute of limitations triggered not by the date of the violation, but by the date a citizen reasonably discovered it. That is the prerogative of the legislature,” wrote Judge Elizabeth L. Harris.

Taheri appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that it is unclear which complaints will ever be time-barred under that standard, opening the door for “technical violations” in past elections to be reported years after the fact.

President Monica M. Márquez and Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr. indicated they would hear Taheri’s case.

The case is Taheri v. Beall et al.