thedenverpost--2020-10-07--Mike Purcell’s perseverance, consistency pays off as Broncos reward nose tackle with three-year cont

Mike Purcell’s perseverance, consistency pays off as Broncos reward nose tackle with three-year contract extension

Since coming into the NFL as an undrafted free agent in 2013 , six teams told Mike Purcell he wasn ’ t good enough .
The defensive lineman was cut 10 times before landing in Denver last April .
At that point , the Broncos took a flier on the former Highlands Ranch High School/Wyoming star as an extra training camp body .
On Tuesday , Purcell ’ s true value — already seen on film and in the stat sheet since he took over the nose tackle job in Week 5 a year ago — materialized in the form @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contract extension that will keep him in Denver through 2023 .
That deal includes $ 6.8 million guaranteed .
Afterward , the humble Purcell reflected on the “ up-and-down ” road that led him to a big payday with his hometown team .
“ There ’ s been multiple times when I thought about hanging it up or maybe that was time to move on and start a real career , ” Purcell said .
“ That year in general ( in 2017 ) , being on six different teams in one calendar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And my wife was pregnant with our daughter at the time… That whole year kind of hurt , but I kept pushing .
If I didn ’ t keep pushing , I wouldn ’ t be here today.
” Purcell ’ s contract is the culmination of the 328-pounder ’ s persistence , especially throughout a demanding 2019 in which he played 26 games : eight with the Salt Lake Stallions in the Alliance of American Football , five during a prove-it preseason to make Denver ’ s roster , and then 13 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Broncos ’ top run defender in 2019 , Purcell led the team with 20.5 run “ stuffs ” ( gains or one yard or fewer ) despite playing less than half of the total snaps , and finished with 48 tackles ( 28 solo ) .
That led to the Broncos placing a second-round tender on Purcell for $ 3.25 million in March .
His play through the first quarter of 2020 has further solidified the front office ’ s confidence in him , as well as that of his teammates .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ they see him , and they know they ’ re going to have to stay on the double-team block longer on him , ” inside linebacker Josey Jewell said .
“ When they have to double longer on him , it means a late release to us , which means they aren ’ t getting into the second level as quick .
We love big guys up front like that who can manhandle some people and keep the blockers off the second level.
” This season , Purcell has three run “ stuffs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tackles and two tackles for loss .
He ’ s been a key component of the defensive front alongside defensive end Shelby Harris , who is due to be a free agent after this season .
Since Purcell took over the nose tackle job last year in a victory at the Chargers , the Broncos have allowed the fewest rushing yards in the league ( 101.4 ) .
For the Broncos to get back in contention following a 1-3 start , the play of Purcell and Harris will be even more critical going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ along the defensive line .
Starting defensive end Jurrell Casey is out for the season with a bicep injury , while Dre ’ Mont Jones and DeMarcus Walker have been on injured reserve for several weeks .
It ’ s a burden Purcell relishes as he ’ s finally getting the chance to play on the stage he thought he belonged on all along .
“ I probably would ’ ve done firefighting if ( football ) didn ’ t work out , ” Purcell said .
“ But what helped me coming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidate last spring ) was knowing this defense from my rookie year ( in San Francisco ) .
A lot of the schemes were already in my brain from when I was a rookie .
It all worked out in my favor.
” Running back Melvin Gordon said he was “ proud ” of Purcell for the resiliency he ’ s shown .
“ Any guy who gets a contract in this league deserves it , ” Gordon said .
“ Mike has ( proven himself ) as a playmaker .
”

Since coming into the NFL as an undrafted free agent in 2013, six teams told Mike Purcell he wasn’t good enough. The defensive lineman was cut 10 times before landing in Denver last April.
At that point, the Broncos took a flier on the former Highlands Ranch High School/Wyoming star as an extra training camp body.
On Tuesday, Purcell’s true value — already seen on film and in the stat sheet since he took over the nose tackle job in Week 5 a year ago — materialized in the form of a three-year, $14.8 million contract extension that will keep him in Denver through 2023. That deal includes $6.8 million guaranteed.
Afterward, the humble Purcell reflected on the “up-and-down” road that led him to a big payday with his hometown team.
“There’s been multiple times when I thought about hanging it up or maybe that was time to move on and start a real career,” Purcell said. “That year in general (in 2017), being on six different teams in one calendar season, it was a lot. And my wife was pregnant with our daughter at the time… That whole year kind of hurt, but I kept pushing. If I didn’t keep pushing, I wouldn’t be here today.”
Purcell’s contract is the culmination of the 328-pounder’s persistence, especially throughout a demanding 2019 in which he played 26 games: eight with the Salt Lake Stallions in the Alliance of American Football, five during a prove-it preseason to make Denver’s roster, and then 13 regular-season appearances, including seven starts.
The Broncos’ top run defender in 2019, Purcell led the team with 20.5 run “stuffs” (gains or one yard or fewer) despite playing less than half of the total snaps, and finished with 48 tackles (28 solo). That led to the Broncos placing a second-round tender on Purcell for $3.25 million in March. His play through the first quarter of 2020 has further solidified the front office’s confidence in him, as well as that of his teammates.
“When people prepare for us, they see him, and they know they’re going to have to stay on the double-team block longer on him,” inside linebacker Josey Jewell said. “When they have to double longer on him, it means a late release to us, which means they aren’t getting into the second level as quick. We love big guys up front like that who can manhandle some people and keep the blockers off the second level.”
This season, Purcell has three run “stuffs” along with a sack, 13 tackles and two tackles for loss. He’s been a key component of the defensive front alongside defensive end Shelby Harris, who is due to be a free agent after this season. Since Purcell took over the nose tackle job last year in a victory at the Chargers, the Broncos have allowed the fewest rushing yards in the league (101.4).
For the Broncos to get back in contention following a 1-3 start, the play of Purcell and Harris will be even more critical going forward due to the array of injuries along the defensive line. Starting defensive end Jurrell Casey is out for the season with a bicep injury, while Dre’Mont Jones and DeMarcus Walker have been on injured reserve for several weeks.
It’s a burden Purcell relishes as he’s finally getting the chance to play on the stage he thought he belonged on all along.
“I probably would’ve done firefighting if (football) didn’t work out,” Purcell said. “But what helped me coming in here (as a bubble roster candidate last spring) was knowing this defense from my rookie year (in San Francisco). A lot of the schemes were already in my brain from when I was a rookie. It all worked out in my favor.”
Running back Melvin Gordon said he was “proud” of Purcell for the resiliency he’s shown.
“Any guy who gets a contract in this league deserves it,” Gordon said. “Mike has (proven himself) as a playmaker.”


thedenverpost--2020-10-06--Moving the flip zone: Democrats march deeper into suburbs

PHOENIX — When Katherine Rutigliano and her husband moved away from San Francisco in 2013 , they figured they would never meet a fellow Democrat again .
But housing was affordable around Phoenix .
No more cramped condo .
No more suffocating mortgage payments .
No more tech-boom exhaustion .
Everything would be easier for them and their kids in the suburbs — everything , that is , except talking politics with neighbors .
Then came an unexpected visitor at the door .
It was a Democratic volunteer rounding up votes ahead of the 2018 Senate election .
Rutigliano invited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her iPad .
She was elated to see all the flashing lights that marked where Democrats lived in her stucco neighborhood on the northern edge of Phoenix .
These San Francisco transplants were not alone .
“ It was like Christmas , ” said Rutigliano , 37 , a mother of three and trained chef who is now sending out mailers for local Democrats .
Rutigliano didn ’ t realize it , but she had moved her family to what is now the front lines in American politics .
Once firmly in Republican @ @ @ @ @ @ @ politically divided — a rare common ground shared by Republicans and Democrats .
As such , they are poised to decide not just who wins the White House this year but also who controls the Senate and the contours of the debate over guns , immigration , work , schools , housing and health care for years to come .
The reasons for the shift are many .
Suburbs have grown more racially diverse , more educated , more economically prosperous and more liberal — all factors making them more likely to vote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are just as likely to point to another trend : density .
Suburbs have grown more crowded , looking more and more like cities and voting like them , too .
For decades , an area ’ s population per square mile has been a reliable indicator of its political tilt .
Denser areas vote Democratic , less dense areas vote Republican .
The correlation between density and voting has been getting stronger , as people began to sort themselves by ethnicity , education , personality , income and lifestyle .
The pattern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , averaged and applied to most American cities .
At around 800 households per square mile , the blue of Democratic areas starts to bleed into red Republican neighborhoods .
A purple ring — call it the flip zone — emerges through the suburbs .
But the midterm elections of 2018 showed that the flip zone has moved in the era of President Donald Trump , with dramatic consequences .
When Democrats across the country penetrated deeper into the suburbs , finding voters farther away from the city , they flipped a net @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the chamber .
An Associated Press analysis of recent election results and density shows Democrats in Arizona moved the flip zone 2 miles deeper into the suburbs from 2016 to 2018 , reaching right to the northern edge of Interstate 101 in Phoenix into areas filled with cul-de-sacs of homes and backyards large enough for swimming pools .
The shift helped them win a Senate seat for the first time in 24 years .
The AP ’ s analysis essentially maps the challenge Trump and his Republican Party are facing today .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden badly in many key suburbs in battleground states .
To hold the White House and control of the Senate , he and his party must stop the flip zone from moving farther out again .
Republicans are working against the recent trend in metros across the country .
In 2018 in Milwaukee , the flip zone moved out less than half a mile as Wisconsin elected a Democratic governor .
Its distance from city hall grew 2.6 miles in Richmond , Va. , helping deliver the congressional seat once held by a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Many political scientists think the trend toward political segregation has put the Democratic Party at a disadvantage .
Its voters are more concentrated in cities .
Republicans are dispersed across larger areas , making it easier for that party to draw favorable districts and win a majority of legislative seats even if it loses the total vote count .
In 2018 , Wisconsin Democrats received 53 % of state assembly votes in 2018 , yet they hold only 36 of the 99 seats in the chamber .
Under the Electoral College , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ won the White House despite losing the popular vote .
The geographic divide has also had a real impact on policy and politics .
The needs of cities and farm towns are often perceived as being in conflict — a tug of war between Republican and Democratic voters over resources .
Until recently , scant racial diversity in the suburbs had allowed Republican politicians to cater to the concerns of white voters — and prey on their biases .
The geographic split also has exacerbated the tensions on display during the pandemic .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the coronavirus , allowing Trump to initially describe the disease as an urban problem and attack Democratic leaders for mishandling the response .
Similarly , civil rights protests have been largest and most contentious in cities , and Trump has blamed their Democratic mayors .
Jonathan Rodden , a Stanford University political scientist and author of the 2019 book “ Why Cities Lose , ” said this political divide on density has eroded the shared responsibility among elected leaders .
Instead , they think of themselves as representing different voter groups and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ together .
“ Municipal officials can blame state and federal officials , who in turn blame lower-level officials , ” Rodden said .
But he also believes the geographic divides can focus voters on local issues , where they ’ re more likely to have an impact , and lead to more local activism .
After the Arizona teacher strike in 2018 , Democrats organized with the goal of increasing pay and reducing class sizes — issues with real impact on suburban families .
A study by the Morrison Institute at Arizona State @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2001 than in 2016 after adjusting for inflation .
The effort galvanized local Democrats to elect Kathy Hoffman as state superintendent of public instruction , ending a 24-year Republican grip on the office .
“ There are a lot of classrooms that don ’ t have certified teachers because the teacher pay is so god-awful , ” said Mary Witzel , a retiree and member of a Democratic precinct committee in the Phoenix flip zone .
“ The whole education situation in Arizona is causing a lot of people who have never @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Cliche campaign ads might show acres of wheat and bustling cities , but the United States is a suburban nation .
AP VoteCast , a survey of the electorate , found that 52 % of voters in 2018 said they live in suburbia .
It ’ s not surprising that Trump and Biden have been tussling over suburban voters for months .
Trump has suggested that efforts to racially integrate the suburbs would destroy those communities with crime and poverty , despite clear data showing that many suburbs are increasingly diverse .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ accused Biden of wanting to kill off the suburbs .
“ Our suburbs would be gone , and you would see problems like you ’ ve never seen before , ” Trump said .
“ He wouldn ’ t know a suburb unless he took a wrong turn , ” Biden responded .
“ This is not 1950 .
All these dog whistles on racism don ’ t work anymore.
” In fact , not all suburbs are alike , and “ knowing ” them can be difficult .
There are the English-style @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the affluent .
Following World War II , mazes of Cape Cod houses and ranches sprawled near highways .
There are gated communities , over-55 communities , planned communities , working-class suburbs , inner-ring suburbs and distant exurbs — and all have their own local characteristics .
Likewise , these battleground areas — the flip zones — are not uniform , AP ’ s analysis shows .
• In Dallas , the purple ring through the suburbs was 18.7 miles in 2016 out from city hall , at an average of 714 households @ @ @ @ @ @ @ close to AT & T Stadium in Arlington , where the Dallas Cowboys play .
Arlington is a so-called boomburb that morphed through new construction from a suburb to a city of 400,000 .
• In Atlanta , the flip zone was nearly 24 miles out , at 434 households per square mile .
It stretches out to diverse suburbs such as Kennesaw , where Black and Latino residents have nearly doubled their share of the population in the last two decades .
• In reliably Democratic Boston , Chicago and Seattle , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ miles , to what is essentially farmland , to find the flip zone .
Now the suburbs are the places delivering a referendum on Trump .
And neatly manicured neighborhoods conceal a more complicated political biosphere .
Trump ’ s election caused Marshall Militano , 73 , to leave his morning Bible study .
He gave his life to Jesus Christ twice , first at a 1959 Billy Graham crusade in Madison Square Garden and again three decades later after dealing with drug and alcohol addictions .
The former long-haul trucker met his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ understand how so many in his breakfast fellowship saw the president as defending Christianity .
Trump had stiffed contractors as a real estate developer and mocked veterans and immigrants — showing none of God ’ s grace .
Living in Glendale to the northwest of Phoenix , Militano turned on his computer two years ago and switched his voter registration from independent to Democrat .
He and his wife cried after he told her .
“ I want our country to get back to calm , ” he said .
“ I ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ m talking about rational .
We haven ’ t done anything in this country in four years except hate.
” Along the same streets , Republican Michael Nudo sees the new partisan tensions .
The 27-year-old was concerned by sometimes violent civil rights protests in distant cities this summer .
He believes people in Glendale , where he lives and volunteers for the local GOP , want the stability of law and order .
Republican leaders , he says , understand that .
Still , he ’ s started carrying a gun @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s going on in our country , you don ’ t know what you ’ re going to end up in the middle of.
” Nudo grew up in the flip zone — when it was more securely Republican territory .
During his freshman year in high school , his family lost their house to foreclosure as millions of other Americans did during the Great Recession .
Then their rental house was foreclosed on , and they had to move again .
The experience instilled in him a conservative belief that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ financially responsible .
Now Nudo sees that housing crash as the beginning of another wave of change in his hometown — “ a huge turnover.
” As the economy recovered , big companies relocated workers from around the country .
Others moved in chasing low housing prices and lower taxes and bringing their politics with them .
The Phoenix area became splintered .
“ You can walk across the street and be in a whole other community , whole other city , ” he said .
“ But they ’ re your neighbors @ @

By Angeliki Kastanis, Josh Boak and Dario Lopez-Mills
PHOENIX — When Katherine Rutigliano and her husband moved away from San Francisco in 2013, they figured they would never meet a fellow Democrat again.
But housing was affordable around Phoenix. No more cramped condo. No more suffocating mortgage payments. No more tech-boom exhaustion. Everything would be easier for them and their kids in the suburbs — everything, that is, except talking politics with neighbors.
Then came an unexpected visitor at the door. It was a Democratic volunteer rounding up votes ahead of the 2018 Senate election. Rutigliano invited her in and inspected the map on her iPad. She was elated to see all the flashing lights that marked where Democrats lived in her stucco neighborhood on the northern edge of Phoenix.
These San Francisco transplants were not alone.
“It was like Christmas,” said Rutigliano, 37, a mother of three and trained chef who is now sending out mailers for local Democrats.
Rutigliano didn’t realize it, but she had moved her family to what is now the front lines in American politics. Once firmly in Republican control, suburbs like hers are increasingly politically divided — a rare common ground shared by Republicans and Democrats.
As such, they are poised to decide not just who wins the White House this year but also who controls the Senate and the contours of the debate over guns, immigration, work, schools, housing and health care for years to come.
The reasons for the shift are many. Suburbs have grown more racially diverse, more educated, more economically prosperous and more liberal — all factors making them more likely to vote Democratic. But demographers and political scientists are just as likely to point to another trend: density. Suburbs have grown more crowded, looking more and more like cities and voting like them, too.
For decades, an area’s population per square mile has been a reliable indicator of its political tilt. Denser areas vote Democratic, less dense areas vote Republican. The correlation between density and voting has been getting stronger, as people began to sort themselves by ethnicity, education, personality, income and lifestyle.
The pattern is so reliable it can be quantified, averaged and applied to most American cities. At around 800 households per square mile, the blue of Democratic areas starts to bleed into red Republican neighborhoods.
A purple ring — call it the flip zone — emerges through the suburbs.
But the midterm elections of 2018 showed that the flip zone has moved in the era of President Donald Trump, with dramatic consequences. When Democrats across the country penetrated deeper into the suburbs, finding voters farther away from the city, they flipped a net 39 House districts and won a majority of the chamber.
An Associated Press analysis of recent election results and density shows Democrats in Arizona moved the flip zone 2 miles deeper into the suburbs from 2016 to 2018, reaching right to the northern edge of Interstate 101 in Phoenix into areas filled with cul-de-sacs of homes and backyards large enough for swimming pools. The shift helped them win a Senate seat for the first time in 24 years.
The AP’s analysis essentially maps the challenge Trump and his Republican Party are facing today. Polling shows the president trailing Democrat Joe Biden badly in many key suburbs in battleground states. To hold the White House and control of the Senate, he and his party must stop the flip zone from moving farther out again.
Republicans are working against the recent trend in metros across the country. In 2018 in Milwaukee, the flip zone moved out less than half a mile as Wisconsin elected a Democratic governor. Its distance from city hall grew 2.6 miles in Richmond, Va., helping deliver the congressional seat once held by a conservative House majority leader, Eric Cantor.
Geographic divide
Many political scientists think the trend toward political segregation has put the Democratic Party at a disadvantage. Its voters are more concentrated in cities. Republicans are dispersed across larger areas, making it easier for that party to draw favorable districts and win a majority of legislative seats even if it loses the total vote count. In 2018, Wisconsin Democrats received 53% of state assembly votes in 2018, yet they hold only 36 of the 99 seats in the chamber. Under the Electoral College, Republicans have twice in the modern era won the White House despite losing the popular vote.
The geographic divide has also had a real impact on policy and politics. The needs of cities and farm towns are often perceived as being in conflict — a tug of war between Republican and Democratic voters over resources. Until recently, scant racial diversity in the suburbs had allowed Republican politicians to cater to the concerns of white voters — and prey on their biases.
The geographic split also has exacerbated the tensions on display during the pandemic. Dense, Democratic areas were hit first by the coronavirus, allowing Trump to initially describe the disease as an urban problem and attack Democratic leaders for mishandling the response. Similarly, civil rights protests have been largest and most contentious in cities, and Trump has blamed their Democratic mayors.
Jonathan Rodden, a Stanford University political scientist and author of the 2019 book “Why Cities Lose,” said this political divide on density has eroded the shared responsibility among elected leaders. Instead, they think of themselves as representing different voter groups and that gives them less incentive to work together.
“Municipal officials can blame state and federal officials, who in turn blame lower-level officials,” Rodden said.
But he also believes the geographic divides can focus voters on local issues, where they’re more likely to have an impact, and lead to more local activism.
After the Arizona teacher strike in 2018, Democrats organized with the goal of increasing pay and reducing class sizes — issues with real impact on suburban families. A study by the Morrison Institute at Arizona State University had found teachers earned higher salaries in 2001 than in 2016 after adjusting for inflation. The effort galvanized local Democrats to elect Kathy Hoffman as state superintendent of public instruction, ending a 24-year Republican grip on the office.
“There are a lot of classrooms that don’t have certified teachers because the teacher pay is so god-awful,” said Mary Witzel, a retiree and member of a Democratic precinct committee in the Phoenix flip zone. “The whole education situation in Arizona is causing a lot of people who have never been engaged before to start paying attention.”
Suburban nation
Cliche campaign ads might show acres of wheat and bustling cities, but the United States is a suburban nation.
AP VoteCast, a survey of the electorate, found that 52% of voters in 2018 said they live in suburbia. It’s not surprising that Trump and Biden have been tussling over suburban voters for months.
Trump has suggested that efforts to racially integrate the suburbs would destroy those communities with crime and poverty, despite clear data showing that many suburbs are increasingly diverse. At the first presidential debate, he accused Biden of wanting to kill off the suburbs.
“Our suburbs would be gone, and you would see problems like you’ve never seen before,” Trump said.
“He wouldn’t know a suburb unless he took a wrong turn,” Biden responded. “This is not 1950. All these dog whistles on racism don’t work anymore.”
In fact, not all suburbs are alike, and “knowing” them can be difficult.
There are the English-style garden cities built a century ago for the affluent. Following World War II, mazes of Cape Cod houses and ranches sprawled near highways. There are gated communities, over-55 communities, planned communities, working-class suburbs, inner-ring suburbs and distant exurbs — and all have their own local characteristics.
Likewise, these battleground areas — the flip zones — are not uniform, AP’s analysis shows.
In Dallas, the purple ring through the suburbs was 18.7 miles in 2016 out from city hall, at an average of 714 households per square mile. The border runs close to AT&T Stadium in Arlington, where the Dallas Cowboys play. Arlington is a so-called boomburb that morphed through new construction from a suburb to a city of 400,000.
In Atlanta, the flip zone was nearly 24 miles out, at 434 households per square mile. It stretches out to diverse suburbs such as Kennesaw, where Black and Latino residents have nearly doubled their share of the population in the last two decades.
In reliably Democratic Boston, Chicago and Seattle, one must drive out more than 40 miles, to what is essentially farmland, to find the flip zone.
“Get back to calm”
Now the suburbs are the places delivering a referendum on Trump. And neatly manicured neighborhoods conceal a more complicated political biosphere.
Trump’s election caused Marshall Militano, 73, to leave his morning Bible study. He gave his life to Jesus Christ twice, first at a 1959 Billy Graham crusade in Madison Square Garden and again three decades later after dealing with drug and alcohol addictions.
The former long-haul trucker met his wife at church. He could not understand how so many in his breakfast fellowship saw the president as defending Christianity. Trump had stiffed contractors as a real estate developer and mocked veterans and immigrants — showing none of God’s grace.
Living in Glendale to the northwest of Phoenix, Militano turned on his computer two years ago and switched his voter registration from independent to Democrat. He and his wife cried after he told her.
“I want our country to get back to calm,” he said. “I’m not talking about kumbaya — I’m talking about rational. We haven’t done anything in this country in four years except hate.”
Along the same streets, Republican Michael Nudo sees the new partisan tensions.
The 27-year-old was concerned by sometimes violent civil rights protests in distant cities this summer. He believes people in Glendale, where he lives and volunteers for the local GOP, want the stability of law and order. Republican leaders, he says, understand that.
Still, he’s started carrying a gun in his truck because “with what’s going on in our country, you don’t know what you’re going to end up in the middle of.”
Nudo grew up in the flip zone — when it was more securely Republican territory. During his freshman year in high school, his family lost their house to foreclosure as millions of other Americans did during the Great Recession. Then their rental house was foreclosed on, and they had to move again.
The experience instilled in him a conservative belief that the government, like families, must be financially responsible.
Now Nudo sees that housing crash as the beginning of another wave of change in his hometown — “a huge turnover.” As the economy recovered, big companies relocated workers from around the country. Others moved in chasing low housing prices and lower taxes and bringing their politics with them. The Phoenix area became splintered.
“You can walk across the street and be in a whole other community, whole other city,” he said. “But they’re your neighbors.”


thedenverpost--2020-10-06--Steve House: Aurora’s ICE facility is a safe, clean and necessary facility — despite what my opponen

Steve House: Aurora’s ICE facility is a safe, clean and necessary facility — despite what my opponent says

On July 12th this year , Debi Hunter Holen was violently attacked and seriously injured on the Highline Canal by a man let out of custody by Denver Police the day before .
Although Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE ) had requested , prior to his release , that the perpetrator be referred to the Aurora facility , that request was not honored , and he was set free to commit a brutal crime .
This crime is just one illustration of why Aurora ’ s ICE Processing Facility is so important to our community .
It keeps us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ families and neighbors safe , and the employees who work there are a vital part of our local economy .
On Sept.14 , I toured the Aurora Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Facility .
I am happy to share with you more about what I learned .
The facility administrator and his staff are some of the best examples of people who live and work in Colorado ’ s 6th Congressional District .
They are highly qualified professionals who do tough , demanding and often thankless work .
This facility has been operating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presidents from both parties .
Unfortunately , Congressman Jason Crow has chosen to turn this service into a cheap political ploy , and he has regularly maligned the facility for over two years now .
It ’ s cynical self-serving political rhetoric at its most shameless .
The hard-working men and women at the Aurora processing facility deserve to have the record set straight on the type of facility they run and how they treat people under their care .
A large majority of the approximately 400 detainees are serious and dangerous criminals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the streets of their communities .
If you believe the stories told by Jason Crow and his democrat colleagues you would think that the facility was dirty and that detainees were barely fed .
You would be led to believe that medical care was sub-standard and only available when near-death situations were at hand .
You would be told that the staff must be terrible and uninterested in the experience or living conditions of the detainees as well .
These things just aren ’ t true .
The truth is that the facility @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were first-rate and even included a modern all-digital x-ray machine , dental care and full mental health staff , including psychologists .
Approximately 20 % of the staff is foreign-born , and now are citizens of the United States .
They can sympathize with the situation many detainees face , and apart from the fact that staff members do not have criminal records , have often gone through a similar experience .
Many of the staff members I met have been at the facility for more than 20 years and are consummate professionals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ often highly engaging and respectful .
We also saw the kitchen , another unexplained sore point for Congressman Crow .
It is a spotless commercial kitchen where the staff was baking cake for the detainees ’ lunch .
The kitchen staff is proud of what they do and are ready to show off their food .
I was told that most of the staff chooses to eat there each day because of the quality of the food .
The facility does not house children under any circumstances .
Young adults under the age @ @ @ @ @ @ @ locations .
On the day of our tour , there were only 13 women in the population .
According to onsite staff , these women were being held because they were a flight risk or due to the violent nature of their crimes committed while in the U.S .
The center processes and houses non-violent and non-criminal detainees , but these individuals have an average stay time of less than 45 days .
Crow has made hyperbolic claims that medical care was not adequate , but when people are brought to this facility @ @ @ @ @ @ @ few if any vaccinations , and come from poor conditions , there are bound to be diseases that must be managed .
For many of the residents , going to this facility will result in getting the best care , sometimes the only care , they have ever had for any health condition .
Like many large facilities , there have been COVID-19 cases , however , there have been no deaths at the facility .
To be critical of an outbreak and want to shut down the facility , as a result @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Crow owes the team here an apology in my opinion .
It is true we need to reform our immigration system .
I will lead an effort to do that if elected to Congress .
While we work to accomplish that , we will still need this facility , because the first job of the government is to keep us safe , and this facility plays a key role in our community ’ s safety and security .
All people deserve to be treated in a respectful and responsible way even when accused @ @ @ @ @ @ @ truth is that the Aurora ICE Processing Facility does that in the most professional way possible .
In my opinion , they deserve our respect and for the truth be told .
Steve House is a candidate for U.S. Congress to represent the 6th Congressional District .
He is a former Colorado Republican State Party Chair and ran for Colorado governor in 2014 .
To send a letter to the editor about this article , submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail .

On July 12th this year, Debi Hunter Holen was violently attacked and seriously injured on the Highline Canal by a man let out of custody by Denver Police the day before. Although Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had requested, prior to his release, that the perpetrator be referred to the Aurora facility, that request was not honored, and he was set free to commit a brutal crime.
This crime is just one illustration of why Aurora’s ICE Processing Facility is so important to our community. It keeps us safe; it keeps our friends, families and neighbors safe, and the employees who work there are a vital part of our local economy.
On Sept.14, I toured the Aurora Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Facility. I am happy to share with you more about what I learned. The facility administrator and his staff are some of the best examples of people who live and work in Colorado’s 6th Congressional District. They are highly qualified professionals who do tough, demanding and often thankless work.
This facility has been operating in our community for three decades under presidents from both parties. Unfortunately, Congressman Jason Crow has chosen to turn this service into a cheap political ploy, and he has regularly maligned the facility for over two years now. It’s cynical self-serving political rhetoric at its most shameless.
The hard-working men and women at the Aurora processing facility deserve to have the record set straight on the type of facility they run and how they treat people under their care. A large majority of the approximately 400 detainees are serious and dangerous criminals that no American would want to walk the streets of their communities.
If you believe the stories told by Jason Crow and his democrat colleagues you would think that the facility was dirty and that detainees were barely fed. You would be led to believe that medical care was sub-standard and only available when near-death situations were at hand. You would be told that the staff must be terrible and uninterested in the experience or living conditions of the detainees as well. These things just aren’t true.
The truth is that the facility was immaculately clean. The medical facilities were first-rate and even included a modern all-digital x-ray machine, dental care and full mental health staff, including psychologists. Approximately 20% of the staff is foreign-born, and now are citizens of the United States. They can sympathize with the situation many detainees face, and apart from the fact that staff members do not have criminal records, have often gone through a similar experience. Many of the staff members I met have been at the facility for more than 20 years and are consummate professionals. Their interaction with the detainees is often highly engaging and respectful.
We also saw the kitchen, another unexplained sore point for Congressman Crow. It is a spotless commercial kitchen where the staff was baking cake for the detainees’ lunch. The kitchen staff is proud of what they do and are ready to show off their food. I was told that most of the staff chooses to eat there each day because of the quality of the food.
The facility does not house children under any circumstances. Young adults under the age of 18 are housed safely in separate locations. On the day of our tour, there were only 13 women in the population. According to onsite staff, these women were being held because they were a flight risk or due to the violent nature of their crimes committed while in the U.S. The center processes and houses non-violent and non-criminal detainees, but these individuals have an average stay time of less than 45 days.
Crow has made hyperbolic claims that medical care was not adequate, but when people are brought to this facility who have had no medical care, few if any vaccinations, and come from poor conditions, there are bound to be diseases that must be managed. For many of the residents, going to this facility will result in getting the best care, sometimes the only care, they have ever had for any health condition. Like many large facilities, there have been COVID-19 cases, however, there have been no deaths at the facility. To be critical of an outbreak and want to shut down the facility, as a result, is misguided and uninformed. Congressman Crow owes the team here an apology in my opinion.
It is true we need to reform our immigration system. I will lead an effort to do that if elected to Congress. While we work to accomplish that, we will still need this facility, because the first job of the government is to keep us safe, and this facility plays a key role in our community’s safety and security.
All people deserve to be treated in a respectful and responsible way even when accused or convicted of a crime. The truth is that the Aurora ICE Processing Facility does that in the most professional way possible. In my opinion, they deserve our respect and for the truth be told.
Steve House is a candidate for U.S. Congress to represent the 6th Congressional District. He is a former Colorado Republican State Party Chair and ran for Colorado governor in 2014.
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thedenverpost--2020-10-06--Alarmed by rising hospitalizations, Colorado officials warn of potential for COVID-19 spread over ho

Alarmed by rising hospitalizations, Colorado officials warn of potential for COVID-19 spread over holidays

Colorado officials including Gov .
Jared Polis expressed concern Tuesday about the “ alarming ” increase in the number of people hospitalized in the state with the novel coronavirus , cautioning that if that figure continues to rise it could soon affect the quality of care for patients .
During a news conference , Polis said Colorado is at a “ critical juncture ” and “ can not continue this trend.
” “ We ’ ve got to do better to avoid overwhelming our hospitals , ” he said .
“ That means doubling down on the basics .
Wearing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ activities and interactions outside where possible .
Washing hands regularly.
” And while it appears COVID-19 infections may have plateaued following a spike from Labor Day weekend , state officials also said Colorado needs to decrease transmission of the virus ahead of winter because cases likely will rise as families gather around Thanksgiving and Christmas .
“ The position that we are going to be in going in on those holidays really depends heavily on what level of disease transmission we experience here in the state in the next couple of weeks , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s state epidemiologist , during the news briefing .
The number of new cases of COVID-19 dropped slightly last week , partly due to a decrease in infections among people ages 18 to 25 .
But excluding that age group , there is still a high level of transmission as new cases were flat compared to the prior week .
There were 3,813 new cases of COVID-19 last week , which is down 425 from the prior week , according to the latest data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the Colorado School of Public Health shows an estimated 5 % of Coloradans have been infected with COVID-19 , and about 1 in 850 people in the state currently are infectious .
The model also predicts Colorado ’ s current trajectory will bring increasing growth in cases and hospital demand , but state epidemiologists don ’ t expect hospital or ICU capacity will be exceeded in the next month .
The number of Coloradans hospitalized with COVID-19 , the disease caused by the new coronavirus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ past month .
As of Tuesday , 246 people were in the hospital with confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus , up from 146 people a month ago , according to data from the state health department .
As of Tuesday , 78 % of Colorado ’ s 1,915 available ICU beds were in use , according to the state health department “ We want to make sure that quality of care at a hospital is available for all those who need it because it most cases it will save their life , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases it will end , of course , tragically and we won ’ t .
”

Colorado officials including Gov. Jared Polis expressed concern Tuesday about the “alarming” increase in the number of people hospitalized in the state with the novel coronavirus, cautioning that if that figure continues to rise it could soon affect the quality of care for patients.
During a news conference, Polis said Colorado is at a “critical juncture” and “cannot continue this trend.”
“We’ve got to do better to avoid overwhelming our hospitals,” he said. “That means doubling down on the basics. Wearing a mask. Social distancing. Keeping activities and interactions outside where possible. Washing hands regularly.”
And while it appears COVID-19 infections may have plateaued following a spike from Labor Day weekend, state officials also said Colorado needs to decrease transmission of the virus ahead of winter because cases likely will rise as families gather around Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“The position that we are going to be in going in on those holidays really depends heavily on what level of disease transmission we experience here in the state in the next couple of weeks,” said Dr. Rachel Herlihy, Colorado’s state epidemiologist, during the news briefing.
The number of new cases of COVID-19 dropped slightly last week, partly due to a decrease in infections among people ages 18 to 25. But excluding that age group, there is still a high level of transmission as new cases were flat compared to the prior week.
There were 3,813 new cases of COVID-19 last week, which is down 425 from the prior week, according to the latest data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
The latest model from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the Colorado School of Public Health shows an estimated 5% of Coloradans have been infected with COVID-19, and about 1 in 850 people in the state currently are infectious.
The model also predicts Colorado’s current trajectory will bring increasing growth in cases and hospital demand, but state epidemiologists don’t expect hospital or ICU capacity will be exceeded in the next month.
The number of Coloradans hospitalized with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, has jumped 68% in the past month. As of Tuesday, 246 people were in the hospital with confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, up from 146 people a month ago, according to data from the state health department.
As of Tuesday, 78% of Colorado’s 1,915 available ICU beds were in use, according to the state health department
“We want to make sure that quality of care at a hospital is available for all those who need it because it most cases it will save their life,” Polis said. “In some cases it will end, of course, tragically and we won’t.”


thedenverpost--2020-10-06--NHL targeting Jan. 1 to begin next season

Commissioner Gary Bettman said Tuesday night the NHL is targeting a Jan. 1 start for next season .
That declaration came after recent talks between the league and NHL Players ’ Association .
The new date is a month after the tentative Dec. 1 start .
“ It was just over a week ago that we celebrated the successful completion of our 2019-20 return to play with the crowning of the Tampa Bay Lightning as Stanley Cup champions , ” Bettman said .
“ Based upon what we have learned and what we know and what we still don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we are now focused on a Jan. 1 start for next season.
” That could mean kicking things off with the Winter Classic that has become a staple of New Year ’ s Day .
The Minnesota Wild are scheduled to host the St. Louis Blues in that game at Target Field , home of Major League Baseball ’ s Twins .
The estimated start for training camps will be announced at a later date .
NHL teams are expected to get camps of at least two weeks , just as they did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s still unclear what next season will look like , though Bettman has said the league hopes each team plays a full 82 games .

Commissioner Gary Bettman said Tuesday night the NHL is targeting a Jan. 1 start for next season.
That declaration came after recent talks between the league and NHL Players’ Association. The new date is a month after the tentative Dec. 1 start.
“It was just over a week ago that we celebrated the successful completion of our 2019-20 return to play with the crowning of the Tampa Bay Lightning as Stanley Cup champions,” Bettman said. “Based upon what we have learned and what we know and what we still don’t know, I can say that we are now focused on a Jan. 1 start for next season.”
That could mean kicking things off with the Winter Classic that has become a staple of New Year’s Day. The Minnesota Wild are scheduled to host the St. Louis Blues in that game at Target Field, home of Major League Baseball’s Twins.
The estimated start for training camps will be announced at a later date. NHL teams are expected to get camps of at least two weeks, just as they did before the expanded playoffs over the summer.
It’s still unclear what next season will look like, though Bettman has said the league hopes each team plays a full 82 games.


thedenverpost--2020-10-06--Adams County District judge says she’s a victim of racial and professional bias to push her off the

Adams County District judge says she’s a victim of racial and professional bias to push her off the bench

An Adams County district judge facing ouster says nearly from the day she began , she ’ s been the target of a relentless campaign of racial and professional bias by peers and members of the commission tasked with reviewing her judicial performance .
District Judge Tomee Crespin , in a rare break from the judicial silence that normally envelopes the profession , outlined to The Denver Post a series of events she says prove she ’ s been an unwelcomed member of the 17th Judicial District – leading to a decision that she doesn ’ t meet professional standards @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the state ’ s chief justice of its Supreme Court , an array of complaints she said were either ignored or pushed aside .
From text messages from the district ’ s chief judge that Crespin says made her uncomfortable , to an attorney Crespin says has a personal ax to grind but was kept in charge of her retention evaluation anyway , Crespin believes she never stood a chance .
“ Over the past two years they have refused to acknowledge the systemic racism and favoritism in the branch , ” Crespin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ judges ) are to be held to a higher standard of ethics and have a duty to report unethical behavior .
Yet we don ’ t say anything despite the obligation to do it , because if you do , you pay for it.
” The commission tasked with evaluating Crespin ’ s performance roundly criticized her for having a poor courtroom demeanor , relying predominantly on anonymous comments .
And despite agreeing to improve by taking on additional classes and tutelage , she was still told she still wasn ’ t measuring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ judge in Colorado facing retention in November who was rated as not meeting professional standards by her district ’ s commission on judicial performance .
The main reason given by the commission : a poor courtroom demeanor .
Yet The Post found several cases where other judges facing retention the past few years performed more poorly than Crespin , yet were recommended to keep their jobs .
Only one other judge in the state was also deemed not to meet standards for this election : A county judge in Sedgwick County , largely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or experience before he became a judge , commission records there show .
Although the 10-member judicial review commission in the 17th District this summer voted 5-3 against Crespin , a decision that goes to every registered voter in Adams and Broomfield counties , two non-attorney members of the panel didn ’ t vote because they never participated in the process .
A 5-5 review commission vote is considered a vote of confidence for a judge , according to the rules that govern the process .
Neither of the commissioners who did not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sheryn Caldwell and Brighton businessman Gary Mikes – responded to Denver Post efforts to reach them .
“ I don ’ t look like the other judges or sound like them , and I never will , ” Crespin told The Post , noting she acquiesced to the commission ’ s request for her to undertake a performance place in December 2019 to improve her initial scores .
“ But to make me conform to the traditional view of what a judge is , ( the commission ) required the performance plan , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , communication training .
I did it all .
You don ’ t fight back , you don ’ t advocate for yourself because you ’ ve worked so hard to get there.
” Crespin is annoyed that despite her success with a performance plan designed to make her a better judge , she ’ s had precious few months on it before the commission began to review her for retention in February 2020 .
In years they are to face retention by voters , district and county judges are rated in an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have appeared before them .
An outside company compiles the results .
The surveys ask opinions on a variety of topics and score the judges on a scale of 1 to 5 for each .
Those surveys and any comments are provided to the commissioners as well as the judge being evaluated .
In the past , more than 100 people typically responded to a survey about a judge and offered an array of opinions that many judges have said they found helpful because attorneys and non-attorneys were generally equally represented .
Non-attorneys @ @ @ @ @ @ @ else appearing in a courtroom including staff .
This year was different .
While attorneys still got a mailed copy , the Colorado Commissions on Judicial Performance chose to save money and reach non-attorneys by email .
It also sent text messages about the electronic survey and gave jurors postcards with a website address as they completed their court service .
Some judges , like Crespin , had only a single non-attorney take the survey , records show .
The result , Crespin said , is a flawed survey heavily weighted toward attorneys @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a judge ’ s performance .
In her interim survey , for instance , she scored well among non-attorneys .
It doesn ’ t appear that the 17th Judicial District commission applies the surveys uniformly .
For example , The Post found that Crespin ’ s latest scores on nearly every level of performance were superior to other judges who had been declared suitable for retention the past few years , a review of those reports show .
For instance , the commission in 2018 said Adams County Court Judge Cindy Hoang-Ha @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be retained even though Dang had scored lower than Crespin in all five categories she was evaluated on by attorneys , including demeanor .
Eight members of the commission were the same for Dang as for Crespin .
In Dang ’ s review , only 19 % of the 65 attorneys surveyed thought she was capable enough to remain a judge .
For Crespin , it was 39 % of 26 attorneys .
And like Crespin , Dang was placed on a performance plan “ to address some of her lower survey scores @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a letter sent to the district commission by a judge who chose to point out the discrepancies .
More than 60 % of the voters that year chose to retain Dang .
District and county judges are to be evaluated in the same manner with no difference in the criteria , Kent Wagner , executive director of the Office of Judicial Performance Evaluation within the Colorado Commissions on Judicial Performance , said .
It was the same for Adams County Court Judge Dianna Roybal .
She was recommended for retention in both 2010 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ better than Crespin , according to the surveys .
As with Crespin , the commission said it was concerned about below-average survey scores from attorneys and , in response , Roybal attended extensive classes to improve .
Voters retained Roybal both elections .
She retired in July 2020 .
“ Why the disparities , then , in the outcomes for myself , the other criminal judges , and Judge Crespin ?
” 17th District Judge Sharon Holbrook wrote the commission in July 2020 , a copy of which was obtained by The Post @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is pervasive and the most insidious reason for Judge Crespin ’ s survey results .
… Of the lowest scores in our district over the last eight years , all of the judges were women , and all were minorities.
” Holbrook , who was a judicial mentor to Crespin , did not respond to Denver Post efforts to reach her for this story .
In all , Holbrook ’ s letter to the commission listed more than a dozen other judges who were recommended for retention since 1992 with scores worse than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the problem was actually much worse than the surveys .
She said she was being targeted to fail .
When Crespin was appointed to the bench in late 2016 by then-Gov .
John Hickenlooper , it was the culmination of a legal career that blossomed as an undergraduate at Metropolitan State College of Denver and later the University of Denver College of Law .
She took her oath in January 2017 .
An Adams County native who managed through the early death of both parents , Crespin determinedly worked toward a goal of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ assistant district attorney , then as an associate judge in municipal courts in Commerce City , Brighton and Lakewood .
“ Many of our culture grew up poor , in a fractured family and I ’ ve had to fight for everything I ’ ve accomplished , ” Crespin said .
“ To finally be appointed after trying for so many years and for so long , and the reality of how I got there .
This is my home and I ’ m proud to be from here.
” It wasn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have other members of the 17th Judicial District court reach out after her appointment and begin to welcome her into the fold .
It was comforting and made her feel at ease .
“ We are so excited , ” then-District Judge Emily Anderson , now the 17th ’ s chief judge , texted Crespin in December 2016 .
“ I am having you over for dinner when I get home to get you ready !
” Over the next several months , Anderson and Crespin became friendly , visited with each other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their day .
“ She was taking me under her wing , it seemed , to help and mentor , ” Crespin said .
And then came a text that stopped Crespin in her tracks .
“ I am blowing this taco stand , ” Anderson texted on April 27 , 2017 , telling Crespin she was heading home from the courthouse in anticipation of a shopping trip for a recreational vehicle the next day .
“ We want one with new safer technology in the future and it is fun to shop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ See you tamale.
” Crespin replied : “ Hahaha … auto correct ?
?
?
” she texted .
“ Or did you call me tamale ?
?
?
?
?
hahaha ” Anderson was quick to respond : “ No , my friend Annie says it for ‘ tomorrow ’ and I forgot you haven ’ t heard me say that lol , ” she wrote .
“ See u tamale.
” Crespin replied : “ Too funny .
I like it !
!
!
See you tamale.
” In retrospect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Anderson it was disparaging and stopped her from ever using the phrase again .
She didn ’ t .
“ I wanted her to continue to like me and be nice to me , ” she explained when The Post asked why she allowed it to continue , even giving tacit approval by reiterating it .
“ We were friends and I didn ’ t think she ’ d make comments like that .
I honestly thought it was auto-correct .
I didn ’ t think of it at all .
I just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the point ?
She ’ s being nice to me and it didn ’ t seem like a big deal.
” Then a week later , Anderson texted Crespin about how the judges were contributing toward a card and gift for a co-worker .
“ Don ’ t worry about paying me back , ” Anderson texted Crespin on May 5 , 2017 .
“ You can buy me a taco sometime tamale.
” She quickly added : “ No I am not calling you a tamale lol ” Crespin responded : “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ soon .
Have a great weekend !
!
!
” Crespin cringes when asked why she allowed it to continue .
“ She ’ s well-connected , ” Crespin said of Anderson .
“ You just leave it , you get used to it .
It ’ s been my whole life people saying stuff like that .
You just let it go .
I wanted to fit in with her.
” Anderson would use the word “ tamale ” at least four more times in text messages to Crespin over the next @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those texts provided to The Post – but so did Crespin .
“ In my mind , it became sort of a pet name , ” Crespin told The Post .
“ Now , I ’ m ashamed I let someone do that to me.
” Anderson told The Post in an email that the words were not intended to be hurtful , and that she had used them with Judge Holbrook as well .
“ I never intended that the word ‘ tamale ’ to be a racially charged or insensitive term @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ In turn , I never thought the term was used insensitively in the texts sent to me from Judge Crespin and Judge Holbrook .
I picked up the phrase from a friend who had seen it on a sitcom and had previously said it to me .
I thought it was catchy and didn ’ t think much more about it.
” She added : “ Judge Crespin had previously mentioned taking me to her favorite place to eat tacos in Commerce City .
… Neither Judge Crespin nor Judge Holbrook raised @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ was insensitive or that having tacos for lunch was also insensitive.
” A number of other issues emerged over the next couple of years that began to move the two judges even further apart , Crespin said .
Much of it began when Anderson was a candidate to replace retiring Chief District Judge Patrick Murphy in 2019 .
Crespin had aligned with other judges to support a different candidate , one with greater seniority and broader experience on the bench .
“ At a meeting of the judges shortly after , Anderson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the outs , ” Crespin recalled .
“ Looking at us , she said she understood she didn ’ t have unanimous support and that there were ‘ Weeds in the district that need to be pulled.
’ We knew who she meant.
” Anderson told The Post the comment is out of context and inaccurate and instead said the challenges she inherited from her predecessor “ were like a weedy garden that had not been tended to for a long time.
” “ I never said or implied that judges who did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ needed to be pulled , ' ” Anderson wrote .
Still , at another meeting between Crespin and Anderson , the latter promised there was no animosity between them .
“ I ’ m aware that there ’ s some strong feelings that I got the job … and it ’ s been a little rocky , ” Anderson told Crespin in June 2019 , according to a recording of that meeting provided to The Post .
“ But it will no way ever impact me wanting to see you succeed.
” Nevertheless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ participating in select committees with the other judges to better the performance and training in the district .
And emails to all the judges discussing changes to court processes inexplicably left Crespin out , according to copies provided to The Post .
Anderson explained much of it away as inadvertent , according to emails between Crespin and Anderson provided to The Post .
But there were other hints that concerned Crespin .
Anderson was supervising Crespin ’ s performance plan and counseled her to reconsider her courtroom demeanor .
“ How do I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ younger , Latina woman , ” Anderson advised Crespin to consider .
“ Where the guys can say these things and I can ’ t get away with it.
” At another meeting , Anderson made it clear that Crespin ’ s ethnicity could factor into how she ’ s viewed on the bench and evaluated by others .
“ Women are graded differently on their judge evaluations , ” Anderson told Crespin .
“ Women of color are graded differently than white women .
And it goes on , you know.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : “ You are a brown woman .
Your last name is Crespin .
Statistically … it ’ s harder for you than it is for me .
… And you are petite.
” In her response to The Post , Anderson she that “ as a judge from the LGBTQ community , I am particularly sensitive to being marginalized .
“ Implicit bias issues were a frequent topic ” in meetings with other judges about the challenges they faced , Anderson wrote .
“ It is an unfortunate fact that female judges @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sound , their hair , make-up , and even hormonal changes .
… It was in the context of the both of us talking about implicit bias that women face that I noted Judge Crespin is a ‘ petite Latina . '
” Crespin said she finally asked Chief Justice Coates in an email to appoint a different judge to oversee her performance plan .
She got no reply .
“ My concern is that nothing ’ s being done about the racist comments she ’ s made to me and the retaliation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ legal counsel for the state court administrator ’ s office , during a February 2020 telephone call , a recording of which was provided to The Post .
“ It sounds like the only thing ( Coates ) is concerned about , that you guys are concerned about , is the performance review .
I ’ m obviously concerned about that , but I ’ m concerned about being here every day and receiving that kind of treatment.
” Eventually , Wagner of the state judicial commission would supervise her performance plan .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that I felt unsafe around her , in this retaliatory racist behavior , ” Crespin told The Post .
“ The rules of human resources don ’ t apply to judicial , to judges , and we have no recourse.
” Commissioners named to a district ’ s judicial review board are appointed to a four-year term that can be renewed once .
Appointments of the four attorneys on the 10-person board are made by the chief justice , who gets two , and one each by the Legislature ’ s senate president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ six non-attorney members are chosen by the governor , who gets two , the Senate president and House speaker each get one , as do the Senate minority leader and the House minority leader .
Anyone who is a Colorado citizen can be on the commission , and attorneys must be licensed and in good standing to practice in the state .
The all-volunteer commission ’ s task is to evaluate sitting district and county court judges to determine whether they meet performance standards for an upcoming retention election .
And their decision @ @ @ @ @ @ @ commissions have not recommended a judge for retention just 24 times out of 1,559 .
Of those , voters sent 10 of them packing .
And of the more than 1,500 judges whose retention was recommended , just four weren ’ t .
The commission ’ s work is secret and its meetings are not open to the public .
Evaluations are done over several months and commissioners hear from a district ’ s chief judge , the district attorney , the public defender ’ s office , and the judge who is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 17th Judicial District Commission on Judicial Performance in June 2019 , it was clear that the initial survey results of more than 100 people indicated a problem .
It was Crespin ’ s first evaluation , an interim survey that ’ s done just before a judge faces retention .
It ’ s a barometer on how things are going since making it to the bench – a chance to test the temperature .
Scores reflected a poor courtroom demeanor , a harshness of tone that some found off-putting .
Crespin chalked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other side of the bench , a tendency for many new judges , according to several people interviewed by The Post .
A performance plan was likely , commissioners said , and Crespin said she chose to embrace it rather than challenging it .
“ I don ’ t fit the typical mold of a judge , but if that ’ s what I needed to do to stay here , then that ’ s what needed to happen , ” she told The Post .
During a commission meeting , chairperson Molly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ appeared on a television episode of Naked and Afraid Survivalist and who unsuccessfully ran for district attorney in the 17th in 2016 , pressed Crespin about the survey scores and was clear what was expected of Crespin under a performance plan .
The committee ’ s intent , Jansen said , was to soften Crespin .
“ I don ’ t think it serves anybody any justice here to sort of dance around what we ’ re trying to ask you to do , ” she said .
“ What we really want @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be the warm and fuzzyish that you can be , that gives a little bit more sense of humanity in that courtroom , to all parties.
” By example , Jansen related a personal incident with Crespin in which a comment the judge made to one of Jansen ’ s clients caused the attorney problems .
“ I had a case , very honestly , where you told my client he was a 3-year-old and I got reamed in the hallway , ” Jansen said .
“ My client was like , ‘ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , she just screwed me over.
’ That is not a position we should be in and that was just unfortunate.
” Jansen told The Post she never considered she had a personal conflict with any judicial review she participated in .
“ At no time during any of the interviews was there a conflict of interest or a requirement to recuse myself from any judge during the review process , ” Jansen emailed The Post .
While the commission was cobbling together a performance plan for Crespin , Jansen was facing the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the part of the Colorado Supreme Court that disciplines lawyers .
On Oct. 25 , 2019 , that office suspended Jansen for a year and a day after she admitted to 11 ethical and professional violations that largely involved clients ’ money , according to OARC records .
That suspension was immediately set aside provided Jansen stay out of trouble for two years .
The agreement included a requirement for an outside attorney to monitor her legal files regularly .
Essentially , Jansen was facing her own performance plan just as she was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jansen said she saw no conflict in that .
Crespin said she learned of Jansen ’ s discipline troubles months later when another judge facing his own retention evaluation questioned how Jansen could remain on the commission .
“ It ’ s the hypocrisy of ( Jansen ) telling me I have to improve while she ’ s on a plan herself , ” Crespin told The Post .
“ She ’ s appeared before me on several cases and she says one of my decisions caused problems with her clients .
Clearly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on many levels.
” Wagner later determined “ he had no concerns about Molly Jansen continuing to serve , that she is admitted to practice law in Colorado and is an attorney for the purposes of her role on the commission as one , ” according to an email Anderson sent the district judges in April 2020 .
When Crespin appeared before the commission in June 2020 , she said the retention interview focused on whether her demeanor had changed .
She said she offered the commission members hundreds of hours of courtroom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demeanor , largely because COVID-19 restricted anyone from being in the courtroom .
None accepted , Crespin said .
“ We ’ re not out here to give this feedback to take you down or ( that ) we have it out for you , ” Jansen told Crespin during the online virtual interview , a recording of which was provided to The Post .
“ We just really want you to have the best experience that you can have on this bench and we ’ re here to help guide you in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ here .
We appreciate the efforts you ’ ve made.
” When the commission issued its final report about Crespin in August 2020 , it acknowledged the performance plan , but claimed she ’ d done poorly : “ The expectation was that she would show significant effort and improvement in the areas raised in that plan ; a review by the Commission indicates that has not occurred.
” It said there were other concerns , none of them discussed with Crespin , she said .
“ …Surveys raised serious questions about whether @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the facts , finding that she did not always base her decisions on the evidence and arguments made before her.
” In fact , records show Crespin ’ s decisions were rarely overturned in her four years on the bench – the two reviewed by The Post were family-court matters involving money .
In response , Crespin filed a formal complaint with Wagner ’ s office noting a number of discrepancies between earlier surveys and the commission ’ s current criticisms , as well as a variety of violations of its own rules @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which she said the commission either failed to give her a fair shake or violated those rules .
The first was Jansen .
Jansen ’ s “ discipline was issued … during the term of my retention review period , ” Crespin wrote in the complaint , a copy of which was obtained by The Post through a public-records request .
She also noted Jansen ’ s conflict of interest when commenting about her disgruntled client .
“ This personal connection and bias should have been cause for her recusal … as such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ according to the complaint .
Other than the concerns about demeanor , the commission never asked Crespin to improve in any other area .
“ The rule requires that the survey report data be provided accurately , ” Crespin wrote in her complaint .
“ The narrative fails to do so.
” In its response to the complaint , a copy of which was obtained by The Post , the commission called Crespin ’ s concerns “ unfortunate.
” “ It is unfortunate that Judge Crespin believes the process was unfair or that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” the five-paragraph response said .
“ The commission rejects this charge.
” The response did not specifically address any of Crespin ’ s complaints , instead asserting the commission did its job carefully and deliberately .
“ There were no conflicts of interest on the committee , nor were there any hidden agendas or relationships , ” it said .
“ There was no undue pressure from anyone on the committee or outside the committee.
” On Sept. 1 , 2020 , the State Commissions on Judicial Performance took up Crespin ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t ask for any changes to the district commission ’ s narrative .
Additionally , it found the district commission violated a pair of rules when it didn ’ t provide Crespin timely copies of reports .
There was no sanction .
It did not address the Jansen issue .

An Adams County district judge facing ouster says nearly from the day she began, she’s been the target of a relentless campaign of racial and professional bias by peers and members of the commission tasked with reviewing her judicial performance.
District Judge Tomee Crespin, in a rare break from the judicial silence that normally envelopes the profession, outlined to The Denver Post a series of events she says prove she’s been an unwelcomed member of the 17th Judicial District – leading to a decision that she doesn’t meet performance standards – and referred to higher-ups, including the state’s chief justice of its Supreme Court, an array of complaints she said were either ignored or pushed aside.
From text messages from the district’s chief judge that Crespin says made her uncomfortable, to an attorney Crespin says has a personal ax to grind but was kept in charge of her retention evaluation anyway, Crespin believes she never stood a chance.
“Over the past two years they have refused to acknowledge the systemic racism and favoritism in the branch,” Crespin told The Post. “We (judges) are to be held to a higher standard of ethics and have a duty to report unethical behavior. Yet we don’t say anything despite the obligation to do it, because if you do, you pay for it.”
The commission tasked with evaluating Crespin’s performance roundly criticized her for having a poor courtroom demeanor, relying predominantly on anonymous comments. And despite agreeing to improve by taking on additional classes and tutelage, she was still told she still wasn’t measuring up.
Crespin is the only district judge in Colorado facing retention in November who was rated as not meeting performance standards by her district’s commission on judicial performance. The main reason given by the commission: a poor courtroom demeanor. Yet The Post found several cases where other judges facing retention the past few years performed more poorly than Crespin, yet were recommended to keep their jobs.
Only one other judge in the state was also deemed not to meet standards for this election: A county judge in Sedgwick County, largely because he has no formal legal training or experience before he became a judge, commission records there show.
Although the 10-member judicial review commission in the 17th District this summer voted 5-3 against Crespin, a decision that goes to every registered voter in Adams and Broomfield counties, two non-attorney members of the panel didn’t vote because they never participated in the process.
A 5-5 review commission vote is considered a vote of confidence for a judge, according to the rules that govern the process. Neither of the commissioners who did not participate – Legacy High School science teacher Sheryn Caldwell and Brighton businessman Gary Mikes – responded to Denver Post efforts to reach them.
“I don’t look like the other judges or sound like them, and I never will,” Crespin told The Post, noting she acquiesced to the commission’s request for her to undertake a performance place in December 2019 to improve her initial scores. “But to make me conform to the traditional view of what a judge is, (the commission) required the performance plan, additional judge training, lectures, seminars, communication training. I did it all. You don’t fight back, you don’t advocate for yourself because you’ve worked so hard to get there.”
Crespin is annoyed that despite her success with a performance plan designed to make her a better judge, she’s had precious few months on it before the commission began to review her for retention in February 2020.
In years they are to face retention by voters, district and county judges are rated in an anonymous survey of lawyers and non-attorneys who have appeared before them. An outside company compiles the results. The surveys ask opinions on a variety of topics and score the judges on a scale of 1 to 5 for each. Those surveys and any comments are provided to the commissioners as well as the judge being evaluated.
In the past, more than 100 people typically responded to a survey about a judge and offered an array of opinions that many judges have said they found helpful because attorneys and non-attorneys were generally equally represented. Non-attorneys include jurors, litigants, or anyone else appearing in a courtroom including staff.
This year was different. While attorneys still got an emailed copy, the Colorado Commissions on Judicial Performance chose to save money and reach non-attorneys by email as well. It also sent text messages about the electronic survey and gave jurors postcards with a website address as they completed their court service.
The response rate was abysmal.
Some judges, like Crespin, had only a single non-attorney take the survey, records show. The result, Crespin said, is a flawed survey heavily weighted toward attorneys and not a complete or honest picture of a judge’s performance. In her interim survey, for instance, she scored well among non-attorneys.
It doesn’t appear that the 17th Judicial District commission applies the surveys uniformly. For example, The Post found that Crespin’s latest scores on nearly every level of performance were superior to other judges who had been declared suitable for retention the past few years, a review of those reports show.
For instance, the commission in 2018 said Adams County Court Judge Cindy Hoang-Ha Thi Dang met performance standards and should be retained even though Dang had scored lower than Crespin in all five categories she was evaluated on by attorneys, including demeanor. Eight members of the commission were the same for Dang as for Crespin.
In Dang’s review, only 19% of the 65 attorneys surveyed thought she was capable enough to remain a judge. For Crespin, it was 39% of 26 attorneys. And like Crespin, Dang was placed on a performance plan “to address some of her lower survey scores” at the time, according to a letter sent to the district commission by a judge who chose to point out the discrepancies.
More than 60% of the voters that year chose to retain Dang.
District and county judges are to be evaluated in the same manner with no difference in the criteria, Kent Wagner, executive director of the Office of Judicial Performance Evaluation within the Colorado Commissions on Judicial Performance, said.
It was the same for Adams County Court Judge Dianna Roybal. She was recommended for retention in both 2010 and 2014 with scores that were fractionally better than Crespin, according to the surveys. As with Crespin, the commission said it was concerned about below-average survey scores from attorneys and, in response, Roybal attended extensive classes to improve. Voters retained Roybal both elections. She retired in July 2020.
“Why the disparities, then, in the outcomes for myself, the other criminal judges, and Judge Crespin?” 17th District Judge Sharon Holbrook wrote the commission in July 2020, a copy of which was obtained by The Post. “I fear that the answer is pervasive and the most insidious reason for Judge Crespin’s survey results. … Of the lowest scores in our district over the last eight years, all of the judges were women, and all were minorities.”
Holbrook, who was a judicial mentor to Crespin, did not respond to Denver Post efforts to reach her for this story.
In all, Holbrook’s letter to the commission listed more than a dozen other judges who were recommended for retention since 1992 with scores worse than Crespin.
Crespin told The Post that the problem was actually much worse than the surveys.
She said she was being targeted to fail.
A newcomer to the court
When Crespin was appointed to the bench in late 2016 by then-Gov. John Hickenlooper, it was the culmination of a legal career that blossomed as an undergraduate at Metropolitan State College of Denver and later the University of Denver College of Law. She took her oath in January 2017.
An Adams County native who managed through the early death of both parents, Crespin determinedly worked toward a goal of becoming a judge through stints as an assistant district attorney, then as an associate judge in municipal courts in Commerce City, Brighton and Lakewood.
“Many of our culture grew up poor, in a fractured family and I’ve had to fight for everything I’ve accomplished,” Crespin said. “To finally be appointed after trying for so many years and for so long, and the reality of how I got there. This is my home and I’m proud to be from here.”
It wasn’t odd, she said, to have other members of the 17th Judicial District court reach out after her appointment and begin to welcome her into the fold. It was comforting and made her feel at ease.
“We are so excited,” then-District Judge Emily Anderson, now the 17th’s chief judge, texted Crespin in December 2016. “I am having you over for dinner when I get home to get you ready!”
Over the next several months, Anderson and Crespin became friendly, visited with each other, shared dinners, texted comments about their day.
“She was taking me under her wing, it seemed, to help and mentor,” Crespin said.
And then came a text that stopped Crespin in her tracks.
“I am blowing this taco stand,” Anderson texted on April 27, 2017, telling Crespin she was heading home from the courthouse in anticipation of a shopping trip for a recreational vehicle the next day.
“Nice,” Crespin texted in reply. “RV’ing sounds fun!”
“We want one with new safer technology in the future and it is fun to shop for them!” Anderson replied. “See you tamale.”
Crespin replied: “Hahaha … auto correct???” she texted. “Or did you call me tamale?????hahaha”
Anderson was quick to respond: “No, my friend Annie says it for ‘tomorrow’ and I forgot you haven’t heard me say that lol,” she wrote. “See u tamale.”
Crespin replied: “Too funny. I like it!!! See you tamale.”
Anderson texted back: “See it is catchy.”
In retrospect, Crespin said she should have told Anderson it was disparaging and stopped her from ever using the phrase again. She didn’t.
“I wanted her to continue to like me and be nice to me,” she explained when The Post asked why she allowed it to continue, even giving tacit approval by reiterating it. “We were friends and I didn’t think she’d make comments like that. I honestly thought it was auto-correct. I didn’t think of it at all. I just let it go. What’s the point? She’s being nice to me and it didn’t seem like a big deal.”
Then a week later, Anderson texted Crespin about how the judges were contributing toward a card and gift for a co-worker.
“Don’t worry about paying me back,” Anderson texted Crespin on May 5, 2017. “You can buy me a taco sometime tamale.”
She quickly added: “No I am not calling you a tamale lol”
Crespin responded: “Thanks tamale. Tacos on me … soon. Have a great weekend!!!”
Crespin cringes when asked why she allowed it to continue.
“She’s well-connected,” Crespin said of Anderson. “You just leave it, you get used to it. It’s been my whole life people saying stuff like that. You just let it go. I wanted to fit in with her.”
Anderson would use the word “tamale” at least four more times in text messages to Crespin over the next several weeks, according to copies of those texts provided to The Post – but so did Crespin.
“In my mind, it became sort of a pet name,” Crespin told The Post. “Now, I’m ashamed I let someone do that to me.”
Anderson told The Post in an email that the words were not intended to be hurtful, and that she had used them with Judge Holbrook as well.
“I never intended that the word ‘tamale’ to be a racially charged or insensitive term,” she wrote The Post. “In turn, I never thought the term was used insensitively in the texts sent to me from Judge Crespin and Judge Holbrook. I picked up the phrase from a friend who had seen it on a sitcom and had previously said it to me. I thought it was catchy and didn’t think much more about it.”
She added: “Judge Crespin had previously mentioned taking me to her favorite place to eat tacos in Commerce City. … Neither Judge Crespin nor Judge Holbrook raised with me that the term ‘tamale’ was insensitive or that having tacos for lunch was also insensitive.”
A number of other issues emerged over the next couple of years that began to move the two judges even further apart, Crespin said.
Much of it began when Anderson was a candidate to replace retiring Chief District Judge Patrick Murphy in 2019. Crespin had aligned with other judges to support a different candidate, one with greater seniority and broader experience on the bench.
But in April 2019, Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Coats chose Anderson.
“At a meeting of the judges shortly after, Anderson made it very clear we were on the outs,” Crespin recalled. “Looking at us, she said she understood she didn’t have unanimous support and that there were ‘Weeds in the district that need to be pulled.’ We knew who she meant.”
Anderson told The Post the comment is out of context and inaccurate and instead said the challenges she inherited from her predecessor “were like a weedy garden that had not been tended to for a long time.”
“I never said or implied that judges who did not support me were ‘weeds who needed to be pulled,'” Anderson wrote.
Still, at another meeting between Crespin and Anderson, the latter promised there was no animosity between them.
“I’m aware that there’s some strong feelings that I got the job … and it’s been a little rocky,” Anderson told Crespin in June 2019, according to a recording of that meeting provided to The Post. “But it will no way ever impact me wanting to see you succeed.”
Nevertheless, Crespin said she was excluded from participating in select committees with the other judges to better the performance and training in the district. And emails to all the judges discussing changes to court processes inexplicably left Crespin out, according to copies provided to The Post.
Anderson explained much of it away as inadvertent, according to emails between Crespin and Anderson provided to The Post. But there were other hints that concerned Crespin. Anderson was supervising Crespin’s performance plan and counseled her to reconsider her courtroom demeanor.
“How do I get my point across as a petite younger, Latina woman,” Anderson advised Crespin to consider. “Where the guys can say these things and I can’t get away with it.”
At another meeting, Anderson made it clear that Crespin’s ethnicity could factor into how she’s viewed on the bench and evaluated by others.
“Women are graded differently on their judge evaluations,” Anderson told Crespin. “Women of color are graded differently than white women. And it goes on, you know.”
And another time, Anderson was blunter: “You are a brown woman. Your last name is Crespin. Statistically … it’s harder for you than it is for me. … And you are petite.”
In her response to The Post, Anderson she that “as a judge from the LGBTQ community, I am particularly sensitive to being marginalized.
“Implicit bias issues were a frequent topic” in meetings with other judges about the challenges they faced, Anderson wrote. “It is an unfortunate fact that female judges may be criticized for the way they sound, their hair, make-up, and even hormonal changes. … It was in the context of the both of us talking about implicit bias that women face that I noted Judge Crespin is a ‘petite Latina.'”
Crespin said she finally asked Chief Justice Coats in an email to appoint a different judge to oversee her performance plan. She got no reply.
“My concern is that nothing’s being done about the racist comments she’s made to me and the retaliation,” Crespin told Terri Morrison, legal counsel for the state court administrator’s office, during a February 2020 telephone call, a recording of which was provided to The Post. “It sounds like the only thing (Coats) is concerned about, that you guys are concerned about, is the performance review. I’m obviously concerned about that, but I’m concerned about being here every day and receiving that kind of treatment.”
Eventually, Wagner of the state judicial commission would supervise her performance plan.
“I basically told (Wagner) that I felt unsafe around her, in this retaliatory racist behavior,” Crespin told The Post. “The rules of human resources don’t apply to judicial, to judges, and we have no recourse.”
The review process
Commissioners named to a district’s judicial review board are appointed to a four-year term that can be renewed once. Appointments of the four attorneys on the 10-person board are made by the chief justice, who gets two, and one each by the Legislature’s senate president and speaker of the house.
The six non-attorney members are chosen by the governor, who gets two, the Senate president and House speaker each get one, as do the Senate minority leader and the House minority leader.
Anyone who is a Colorado citizen can be on the commission, and attorneys must be licensed and in good standing to practice in the state.
The all-volunteer commission’s task is to evaluate sitting district and county court judges to determine whether they meet performance standards for an upcoming retention election.
And their decision carries some weight. Since 1990, commissions have not recommended a judge for retention just 24 times out of 1,559. Of those, voters sent 10 of them packing. And of the more than 1,500 judges whose retention was recommended, just four weren’t.
The commission’s work is secret and its meetings are not open to the public. Evaluations are done over several months and commissioners hear from a district’s chief judge, the district attorney, the public defender’s office, and the judge who is being evaluated.
When Crespin sat before the 17th Judicial District Commission on Judicial Performance in June 2019, it was clear that the initial survey results of more than 100 people indicated a problem. It was Crespin’s first evaluation, an interim survey that’s done just before a judge faces retention. It’s a barometer on how things are going since making it to the bench – a chance to test the temperature.
Scores reflected a poor courtroom demeanor, a harshness of tone that some found off-putting.
Crespin chalked it up to inexperience with working the other side of the bench, a tendency for many new judges, according to several people interviewed by The Post.
A performance plan was likely, commissioners said, and Crespin said she chose to embrace it rather than challenging it.
“I don’t fit the typical mold of a judge, but if that’s what I needed to do to stay here, then that’s what needed to happen,” she told The Post.
During a commission meeting, chairperson Molly Jansen, an attorney well-known for having appeared on a television episode of Naked and Afraid Survivalist and who unsuccessfully ran for district attorney in the 17th in 2016, pressed Crespin about the survey scores and was clear what was expected of Crespin under a performance plan.
The committee’s intent, Jansen said, was to soften Crespin.
“I don’t think it serves anybody any justice here to sort of dance around what we’re trying to ask you to do,” she said. “What we really want to see you improve on is to be the warm and fuzzyish that you can be, that gives a little bit more sense of humanity in that courtroom, to all parties.”
By example, Jansen related a personal incident with Crespin in which a comment the judge made to one of Jansen’s clients caused the attorney problems.
“I had a case, very honestly, where you told my client he was a 3-year-old and I got reamed in the hallway,” Jansen said. “My client was like, ‘I should fire you because that judge, she just screwed me over.’ That is not a position we should be in and that was just unfortunate.”
Jansen told The Post she never considered she had a personal conflict with any judicial review she participated in.
“At no time during any of the interviews was there a conflict of interest or a requirement to recuse myself from any judge during the review process,” Jansen emailed The Post.
While the commission was cobbling together a performance plan for Crespin, Jansen was facing the state Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel, the part of the Colorado Supreme Court that disciplines lawyers.
On Oct. 25, 2019, that office suspended Jansen for a year and a day after she admitted to 11 ethical and professional violations that largely involved clients’ money, according to OARC records. That suspension was immediately set aside provided Jansen stay out of trouble for two years. The agreement included a requirement for an outside attorney to monitor her legal files regularly.
Essentially, Jansen was facing her own performance plan just as she was helping to create one for Crespin. Jansen said she saw no conflict in that.
Crespin said she learned of Jansen’s discipline troubles months later when another judge facing his own retention evaluation questioned how Jansen could remain on the commission.
“It’s the hypocrisy of (Jansen) telling me I have to improve while she’s on a plan herself,” Crespin told The Post. “She’s appeared before me on several cases and she says one of my decisions caused problems with her clients. Clearly, there’s a bias here on many levels.”
Wagner later determined “he had no concerns about Molly Jansen continuing to serve, that she is admitted to practice law in Colorado and is an attorney for the purposes of her role on the commission as one,” according to an email Anderson sent the district judges in April 2020.
The goals change
When Crespin appeared before the commission in June 2020, she said the retention interview focused on whether her demeanor had changed. She said she offered the commission members hundreds of hours of courtroom video for them to witness her improved demeanor, largely because COVID-19 restricted anyone from being in the courtroom. None accepted, Crespin said.
Jansen, however, sounded reassuring and encouraging.
“We’re not out here to give this feedback to take you down or (that) we have it out for you,” Jansen told Crespin during the online virtual interview, a recording of which was provided to The Post. “We just really want you to have the best experience that you can have on this bench and we’re here to help guide you in that process. We know the stakes here. We appreciate the efforts you’ve made.”
When the commission issued its final report about Crespin in August 2020, it acknowledged the performance plan, but claimed she’d done poorly: “The expectation was that she would show significant effort and improvement in the areas raised in that plan; a review by the Commission indicates that has not occurred.”
It said there were other concerns, none of them discussed with Crespin, she said.
“…Surveys raised serious questions about whether Judge Crespin effectively applies the law to the facts, finding that she did not always base her decisions on the evidence and arguments made before her.”
In fact, records show Crespin’s decisions were rarely overturned in her four years on the bench – the two reviewed by The Post were family-court matters involving money.
In response, Crespin filed a formal complaint with Wagner’s office noting a number of discrepancies between earlier surveys and the commission’s current criticisms, as well as a variety of violations of its own rules. Crespin identified six key areas in which she said the commission either failed to give her a fair shake or violated those rules. The first was Jansen.
Jansen’s “discipline was issued … during the term of my retention review period,” Crespin wrote in the complaint, a copy of which was obtained by The Post through a public-records request. She also noted Jansen’s conflict of interest when commenting about her disgruntled client.
“This personal connection and bias should have been cause for her recusal … as such biased sentiment was raised constantly,” according to the complaint.
Other than the concerns about demeanor, the commission never asked Crespin to improve in any other area.
“The rule requires that the survey report data be provided accurately,” Crespin wrote in her complaint. “The narrative fails to do so.”
In its response to the complaint, a copy of which was obtained by The Post, the commission called Crespin’s concerns “unfortunate.”
“It is unfortunate that Judge Crespin believes the process was unfair or that the commission was biased against her,” the five-paragraph response said. “The commission rejects this charge.”
The response did not specifically address any of Crespin’s complaints, instead asserting the commission did its job carefully and deliberately.
“There were no conflicts of interest on the committee, nor were there any hidden agendas or relationships,” it said. “There was no undue pressure from anyone on the committee or outside the committee.”
On Sept. 1, 2020, the State Commissions on Judicial Performance took up Crespin’s complaint and said it wouldn’t ask for any changes to the district commission’s narrative. Additionally, it found the district commission violated a pair of rules when it didn’t provide Crespin timely copies of reports. There was no sanction.
It did not address the Jansen issue.