More than 50 CC students over the past two years worked tirelessly to create a judicial retention election resource, which was published in the Colorado Springs Independent in September.
In Spring 2022, the student organization Injustice Watch, formerly known as Justice Watch, was founded by co-chairs Koray Gates ’25, Emma Fowkes ’24, and Isabelle Wagenvoord ’25. In collaboration with Citizen’s Project, a local nonprofit, the students wanted to create a judicial report card with a comprehensive overview of a judge’s record in the courthouse. The plan was to create a report that included both the observational data collected by court watchers, as well as sentencing records for each judge up for retention at the El Paso County Court.
“As we researched the court system in Colorado, we realized that there was extremely limited information available to the public about what goes on within our local courtrooms, and we thought that should change,” says Gates, a Political Science major, Journalism minor, and President of CC Student Government Association. “It is important for people to read our resource because it provides a look into the courtrooms that so many thousands of our fellow Colorado Springs community members pass through every year. Though these judges are appointed by the governor, they are accountable to the local community, and we want to provide voters with the information they need to make an informed decision.”
Since Spring 2022, Injustice Watch has sent dozens of court watchers to the courthouse to gather enough data for the resource. Court watchers are members of the club who have attended court hearings at the El Paso County Combined Courts over the past two years. Gates and Fowkes had also been working diligently to get the historical sentencing data from the courthouse, which they originally intended to add as a quantitative element to the resource, along with the court-watching data. Gates says that the club’s hope was to compare the historical sentencing data from local judges against Colorado’s sentencing recommendations and against national averages for certain crimes. From there, they would be able to see how local judges lined up based on the defendant’s race, socioeconomic class, gender, and more.
In Fall 2023, club leadership consulted with attorneys and submitted two Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act (CCJRA) requests that were both denied because the request “wasn’t an appropriate use of public resources.”
“Though, in our view, educating the public about what goes on in our local courts is an appropriate use of public resources, there was no course of action to force the court to release the data without lawsuits,” Gates says. “Following the denials, we attempted to get the data from other means and contacted many organizations and lawyers around the state, including the district attorney’s office, the ACLU of Colorado, and other nonprofits who might be able to help us. Meanwhile, our nonprofit partner Citizen’s Project got in touch with folks in the Colorado Attorney General’s office and the Office of the Governor. Unfortunately, no one was able to figure out how or no one was willing to help us get the data with at this point only months to go until the election.”
After accepting that they would not be able to get the historical sentencing data and discussing it with Citizen’s Project, Gates and Fowkes decided that they would still create a voter resource using the data club members collected at the courthouse.
The Injustice Watch leadership team worked with Citizen’s Project to create the assessment tool that court watchers completed while attending live court hearings. The data was collected over a two-year period, with more than 50 different CC students attending over 95 live court hearings at the El Paso County Combined Courts. Each judge included in the voter resource was observed between five to nine different times, with one to five students observing at a time.
“We thought that it was still very valuable to share the things our court watchers had experienced in the courtroom even without the quantitative element,” says Gates. “Though it is subjective, we still feel that it provides an important view into the workings of the court and the judges up for retention by members of the COS community. The end goal of our project was never to make recommendations on how to vote in the election, but rather to inform and add context.”
The court watchers completed a rubric while observing the court hearing, answering the following questions on a scale of zero to five, with zero meaning “not at all” and five meaning “noticeably so.”
After the court watchers completed the assessment sheet and left the courtroom, they would tabulate the data on to a spreadsheet. Gates says that sometimes judges and other members of the court would talk to the court watchers during free moments, but otherwise the court watchers would just observe and complete the rubric.
The Injustice Watch co-chairs recognize that the voter resource is comprised of subjective data from their court watchers but did their best to reduce biases. The leadership team worked with Citizen’s Project from the beginning to develop the standardized assessment sheet and the court watchers used it for the entire duration of the project to limit the subjectivity. Each judge was also observed multiple times by different students as another way to reduce potential or perceived bias. Because the data is inherently subjective, club leadership spent time educating members on what they should be looking for when filling out the sheet. Ultimately, however, a lot of it was left up to the court watcher’s interpretation, which is why club leadership is transparent about the subjectivity of the resource.
Fowkes, who graduated in the spring with a degree in Sociology and remained heavily involved in the project this semester, was a member of the leadership team, working to organize the court watching sessions, compile observations, and write the introductions in the voter resource.
“It was important to me to help get the project across the finish line because it’s a culmination of everything that has been built through the past three years,” says Fowkes. “The voter resource is the result of so many students’ work, and I wanted to make sure we were good on our promise to make something of it. Much of our leadership board graduated last year, leaving the new leaders with a lot of work, some of which they were just stepping into as undergrads or recently joined members. I wanted to make sure nobody was left hanging out to dry in such a critical moment.”
Gates did a large part of the data processing, which was made easier by using the data collection system created by Brigitte Arcoite ’24.
Hunter Burge ’25, a Political Science major and Spanish minor, is on the club’s leadership team and helped to create the voter resource. She joined the club last year as a court watcher and now has more of an administrative role where she looks at the El Paso County Court Docket and makes the club’s blockly schedule, listing the time, date, and location of the hearing.
“It was so interesting to be part of the process of creating the voter resource. Mainly, I found all of the obstacles and challenges really shaped what we reached at the end of this process,” says Burge. “At the end of the day, I think we all recognize that this election cycle is our first try at this effort, and the reality is that no one has ever attempted to create something like this in the Springs. Because of all the newness, we acknowledged that this election cycle, while we’re proud of what we came up with in the end, really serves as a foundational year for this organization.”
While there are over 100 members of the club, the data was collected by about 50 students who went court watching as part of the effort to create the resource. Gates, Burge, and Odirichi Igwe ’27 then averaged the data collected in the court watchers’ assessment sheets and put together the bios on each judge that were included in the voter resource.
Club leaders emphasize that creating this resource was a very collaborative effort amongst the students and that their CCE staff advisor, Sarah Elsey, was instrumental in the success of both the club and the resource.
“We are so grateful for every student who went to the court or showed up to a meeting,” Fowkes says. “The majority of the work that went into this resource happened well before this fall, in small increments every time a student sat in on a court hearing over the past two years. The resource has truly been a collective effort and will hopefully serve an even larger portion of the community.”
Now that the resource is published, the club is reflecting on how and what they can improve in the voter resource for the next election cycle.
“Right now we are taking a moment to breathe and celebrate our accomplishment which we are all very proud of,” Gates says. “But even now, we are looking toward the next iteration of the judicial voter resource. We learned a lot from this first edition and are discussing the lessons learned and what should be done differently next time.”
The judicial voter resource was printed in 30,000 copies of the Colorado Springs Independent that was distributed around the city on Oct. 17. The Catalyst, CC’s independent student newspaper, also published the voter resource, which club leaders hope helped to reach more students before Election Day.
“We have received a couple emails from members of the Colorado Springs community thanking us and saying that the resource was helpful to them as they filled out their ballot, which is really encouraging,” says Gates, who added that they hope to continue getting feedback on the resource, whether it is positive, negative, or otherwise. “The resource has been shared informally around campus and I have heard from a lot of students who think it is a great project and are interested in getting involved.”
The full Injustice Watch Voter Resource can be found beginning on page. 24 of Vol. 1 Issue 12 of the Colorado Springs Independent published on Oct. 17.
Club leaders can be reached at injusticewatch@ColoradoCollege.edu.