By Kirk Mitchell
The Denver Post
DENVER, Colo. — Litigious prisoners at dozens of state, federal and private prisons across Colorado have made the inmate lawsuit — often hand-scrawled in pencil on notebook paper — the most common type of litigation in Colorado’s U.S. District Court.
An avalanche of 637 lawsuits filed within the district by or on behalf of inmates in 2013 alone have resulted in precariously high case loads that could soon reach a tipping point if senior judges as old as 83 can no longer fill a judicial gap.
“The storm clouds are on the horizon. If they get here they will be a perfect storm,” Chief District Judge Marcia S. Krieger said Friday afternoon in a gathering called the first state of the court address.
Krieger said Colorado hasn’t had a new judgeship since 1984. Since then, Colorado’s population has grown 60 percent to 5.2 million people. The court needs at least two more judges, she said.
“I’m praying for sunny skies,” said Krieger, while pointing out that it is the role of Congress to establish new judgeships.
The inmate lawsuits comprised nearly one out of every five civil lawsuits filed in Colorado in 2013. They arrive in bunches at federal court offices from 20 Colorado, five federal and six private prisons.
Full story: Prison-centric Colorado spurs high volume of inmate lawsuits