Appeals record
What the Colorado Court of Appeals did with trial judges’ rulings, statewide and by type of case. These are counts of appealed decisions. They are never a share of all the cases a judge decided, because no public count of those exists.
Statewide, by type of case
| Type of case | Appealed decisions | Changed on appeal | Share of appealed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Criminal | 1275 | 252 | 20% |
| Dependency and neglect | 645 | 48 | 7% |
| Civil | 608 | 188 | 31% |
| Family (domestic relations) | 322 | 96 | 30% |
| Mental health | 151 | 5 | 3% |
| Probate | 51 | 12 | 24% |
| Juvenile delinquency | 28 | 6 | 21% |
| Adoption | 11 | 1 | 9% |
| County civil | 1 | 1 | 100% |
| County court | 1 | 0 | 0% |
| All types | 3093 | 609 | 20% |
| Published opinions | 201 | 100 | 50% |
| Unpublished opinions | 2892 | 509 | 18% |
Publication status can change: an opinion first issued as unpublished is sometimes later designated for publication.
How to read this table
- Only rulings that someone appealed appear here. Most rulings are never appealed, and there is no public count of every case a judge decided, so none of these numbers is a rate for a judge’s work as a whole.
- “Changed on appeal” counts decisions that were reversed, partly affirmed, vacated or sent back (remanded). A ruling “affirmed and remanded with directions” counts as affirmed: the ruling stands and the trial court is told to take a further step. “Share of appealed” divides that count by the appealed decisions in the same row, and by nothing else.
- A judge with a busy docket has more appeals, and more changed decisions, than a judge with a small one. Some types of cases are appealed far more often than others.
- A remand can be narrow: for example a new calculation or one more finding, with the rest of the ruling intact.
- A change in the law between the ruling and the appeal can cause a reversal that no judge could have avoided.
- None of this is a finding of misconduct. Reviewing and correcting rulings is the normal work of an appeals court.
Where the numbers come from
- The Court of Appeals’ own weekly announcements of its decisions, from June 2023, matched to the trial judge named in each one. How the matching works, and what each outcome and each published or unpublished opinion means, is on the Our method page.
- Every judge’s own list, with a link to each decision, is on that judge’s profile. Updated every week.
- How each number is calculated. Appealed decisions: every decision in those announcements on a ruling by a trial judge on this site, counted once. Changed on appeal: the decisions announced as reversed, partly affirmed, vacated or sent back. Share: changed ÷ appealed, rounded to a whole percent. Published or unpublished: as printed in the announcement.
- Colorado Court of Appeals, weekly case announcements (the source of every appeal listed here)
- The open-source code that matches and counts them (GitHub)
How to read an appeal: every outcome explainedSame law, different judge? What research says about the judge you drawJudges and prosecutors by courthouseReport a mistake