Boulder County Honors Its Judicial Past
| Publication year | 2011 |
| Pages | 13 |
| Citation | Vol. 40 No. 11 Pg. 13 |
2011, November, Pg. 13. Boulder County Honors Its Judicial Past
November 2011
Vol. 40, No. 11 [Page 13]
The SideBar
About the Author
Silvia Pettem is a Boulder-based historian, a Daily Camera columnist, and author of more than a dozen books, including Someone's Daughter: In Search of Justice for Jane Doe-pettem@earthlink.net.
November 2011 marks the 150th anniversary of Colorado's original seventeen counties. Boulder, which is in the Twentieth Judicial District (J.D.), is proud to be among them. In honor of the occasion, Boulder District Attorney (DA) Stanley L. Garnett spearheaded an effort to compile an illustrated history of the DAs who served Boulder County from the inception of statehood to the present day.
Garnett stated in a recent interview:
The fundamental issues in the justice system-crime, punishment, community safety, rehabilitation, fairness, and reflection of community standards in how people are held accountable-are deeply rooted in the history and social development of any community. Understanding the history of the district attorneys who have served this county since the 1870s will hopefully remind us that the challenges of the law and the justice system are not new, and that there is much we can learn from the successes-and the mistakes-of those who preceded us.(fn1)
In tribute to Boulder County's judicial past, the following pages are highlights of the twenty-one DAs whose photographs now hang on the walls of the Boulder County Justice Center.
Pre-Statehood (1859-76)
Boulder has the longest judicial history of all of the counties in Colorado. In March 1859, shortly after the first prospectors staked their gold mining claims at Gold Hill, the mining community created the future state's first code of laws, Mountain District Number 1, Nebraska Territory.(fn2) A "president" served as judge in court, and no one who had been admitted to the bar in any state or territory was permitted to appear in any case, unless he was a legal party to the case being tried.(fn3)
Attorneys, however, were accepted when the Colorado Territory(fn4) and the original counties were formed in 1861. The U.S. Congress assigned William Gilpin as Colorado Territory's first governor. His first official act of record was to establish a Supreme Court. Next, he organized three J.D.s to which he assigned judges.(fn5) Boulder County was part of the First J.D., along with Arapahoe, Douglas, Jefferson, Larimer, and Weld Counties. Benjamin F. Hall presided as Chief Justice.(fn6)
Colorado's First J.D. (1877-87)
On August 1, 1876, one month after Colorado Territory voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of statehood, President Ulysses S. Grant proclaimed Colorado the thirty-eighth state in...
To continue reading
Request your trial