Rebecca Love Kourlis, who announced this week she will leave the Colorado Supreme Court on Jan. 10, left a strong mark on the law in the very place where most citizens see it up close and personal – the jury box.
Most citizens will never be charged with a serious crime or find themselves on the wrong end of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. That means the image most citizens form about the “majesty of the law” is the one they acquire serving on juries in criminal and civil trials.
Before Colorado instituted a series of reforms that Kourlis helped craft, that image was more likely to be petty than majestic.
Jurors often complained about receiving the “mushroom treatment” – being left in the dark about key matters of fact and evidence that were vital to their ultimate judgments. But after the jury reform committee led by Kourlis finished its work, jurors were allowed to take notes and to receive copies of key exhibits. They could also submit questions in writing to a judge, who would screen them to ensure they were appropriate, then query witnesses.
While some lawyers feared such reforms would lead to grandstanding by would-be Perry Masons in the jury box, in practice they have plugged gaps in the information presented to jurors and ensured the law is carefully explained.
In her decade on the high court, Kourlis built a reputation as a thoughtful, moderate jurist dedicated to high ethical standards in the bar. It’s a token of the respect she enjoys that both Democratic U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar and Republican Gov. Bill Owens urged President George Bush to name her to the Supreme Court.
While she hasn’t announced what she intends to do next, Denver lawyer John Moye, a former president of the Colorado Bar Association, says he and Kourlis, 53, plan to found a judicial institute to continue working for legal reforms. It would be a logical next step for this practical and idealistic jurist.
