Just months after Colorado officials reminded dozens of senior judges they were required by law to annually file personal financial disclosure statements with the Secretary of State's Office — and 14 months after it was exposed that nearly none of them had — three still have not complied, The Denver Gazette has found.
A fourth did so only after he was contacted by The Denver Gazette earlier last month.
One of those senior jurists, former 5th Judicial District Chief Judge W. Terry Ruckriegle in Breckenridge, hasn’t filed the document with the state since 2008, two years before he left the full-time bench, records show.
Ruckriegle has been a senior judge — a jurist who has technically retired but remains on the bench in a limited capacity — since 2010. Senior judges are hired by the Judicial Department and for short stints decide cases that run from felonies to family court, just like any other sitting judge.
Until mid-year and despite the law, the department only asked that senior judges file the disclosures with its State Court Administrator's Office. That changed in August this year and the contract all senior judges must sign includes a provision requiring the disclosure to be filed with the state — and provide proof that it has been — before doing any work as a senior judge.
Contracts are renewed on different dates dependent on when a judge joined the program. All were assigned to work cases as early as January this year, court records show.
A department spokeswoman said emails were sent three times this year, reminding all senior judges of their obligation to file — on April 3, July 1, and Oct. 10.
Another senior judge — former 2nd Judicial District Judge R. Michael Mullins in Denver — hasn’t filed a personal financial disclosure statement with the state since 2014, two years before he left the bench, records show. He’s been a senior judge since 2016, records show.
Colorado currently has 46 senior judges. Nearly all have filed financial disclosure statements with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office this year, a check by The Denver Gazette found.
That includes Scott Epstein, Pueblo County’s former district attorney and a 10th Judicial District judge there who retired in 2007. He became a senior judge the same year he retired and hadn’t filed a disclosure statement in more than 16 years, making him the jurist with the longest lag in filing.
Records show he finally filed in December 2023, four months after The Denver Gazette exposed that dozens of senior judges and about one in six sitting district and county court judges hadn’t filed the statements in years.
The Gazette found that all sitting district and county court judges have filed the required financial statements with the Secretary of State's Office this year. All are available online for public inspection, also a first.
Senior judges do not face retention votes like sitting district and county court judges, nor are they evaluated by any performance commission, yet they perform the same duties as any other judge.
The disclosures are the only way the public can know if a judge might have a conflict of interest in the cases over which they preside. The disclosures are required annually by law and willingly failing to file is considered a misdemeanor that is punishable by a fine up to $5,000.
The newspaper’s investigation in August 2023 laid bare a toothless law with little enforcement. The Secretary of State’s Office says its job is merely to compile the filings and make them available for public inspection, but not to remind anyone of a failure to submit them.
The stories prompted the state’s Commission on Judicial Discipline to launch its own inquiry and in January 2024 to tell legislators it was investigating 73 judges for allegedly violating state law requiring the disclosures, which also violated portions of the Code of Judicial Conduct to which jurists are supposed to comply.
Discipline commission Executive Director Anne Mangiardi in late September told The Denver Gazette that its “work on these matters is coming to a close” and that it would be releasing a summary to legislators and the public “addressing the resolution of these matters.” She did not give a timeline.
Mangiardi did not say whether the four judges — now three — who haven’t filed the disclosures are among the matters to be addressed by the commission.
Under its current rules, the work of the commission is, by law, secret unless there is a public discipline approved by the Supreme Court. Voters in November are being asked to decide on Amendment H, which will change how judicial discipline occurs and allow for greater transparency.
Shortly after The Denver Gazette's investigation, the Secretary of State’s Office conducted training classes for judges and improved its online record keeping so it is easily evident that a disclosure was filed. Some judges previously complained there was no easy way to ensure a disclosure they said they sent via email was actually received.
Douglas Miles, former El Paso County Court judge, now in Manitou Springs, said he sent in his statement after a Denver Gazette reporter asked why it hadn’t been filed. Records show he last filed a personal disclosure in 2022 and joined the senior judge program in August that year.
“Just inattention on my part” was Miles’ emailed response.
Miles’ current contract with the senior judge program, signed in September 2024, is the only one of the four who hadn’t filed with the provision requiring the disclosure go to the Secretary of State's Office, according to a copy provided to The Denver Gazette.
Stephen Groome, a former 11th Judicial District judge who is now in Littleton, is the other senior judge not to have filed. Records show he last filed in 2022 and joined the senior judge program in February 2023.
Groome and Mullins did not respond to Denver Gazette emails requesting a comment or explanation. Ruckriegle over three weeks twice asked the Gazette what it wanted to discuss, and said he had a full calendar but would make time. He had not responded as of press time Friday.
Contracts signed by Mullins and Groome were signed earlier in the year and have the former requirement to file disclosures with the Judicial Department instead of the secretary of state.
The State Court Administrator’s Office handles the senior judge program and would not say whether it required the filings to be made with the state or that the Judicial Department would forward copies filed there.
“The Senior Judge Program does not believe it is their role to file a judge’s documents with the Secretary of State,” department spokeswoman Suzanne Karrer emailed The Denver Gazette. “Reminders have been sent out on this issue.”
Former 10th Judicial District Chief Judge Dennis Maes previously criticized senior judges for not filing the disclosures with the state, saying it lacks transparency.
“A senior judge can have the same conflict of interest as any other judge. It's disingenuous to suggest they are a different kind of judge,” Maes told The Denver Gazette. “They're a judge. Period.”