The Judiciary of Colorado is established and authorized by Article VI of the Colorado Constitution as well as the law of Colorado. The various courts include the Colorado Supreme Court, Colorado Court of Appeals, Colorado district courts (for each of the 22 judicial districts), Colorado county courts (for each of Colorado's 64 counties), Colorado water courts, and municipal courts. The administration of the state judicial system is the responsibility of the Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court as its executive head and is assisted by several other commissions. In Denver, the county and municipal courts are integrated and administratively separate from the state court system.
Courts
Colorado courts include the:
Colorado Supreme Court, Colorado Court of Appeals, Colorado district courts, Colorado county courts, Colorado water courts, and municipal courts.
All of the courts above, other than municipal courts and Denver's county court, are part of the state court system. In Denver, county courts and municipal courts are integrated and are not part of the state court system for administrative purposes, and the Denver Probate Court and the Denver Juvenile Court have jurisdiction over probate and juvenile matters, respectively. Outside Denver, these matters are within the jurisdiction of the district courts.
Supreme Court
The Colorado Supreme Court is the state supreme court, the state's highest appellate court. The Supreme Court consists of chief justice (currently Brian Boatright) and six associate justices.
Court of Appeals
The Colorado Court of Appeals is the state intermediate appellate court. It has jurisdiction primarily over final judgments of district courts acting as trial courts, and of approximately 33 kinds of an administrative agency or board determinations. It is bypassed in the case of death penalty appeals, cases in which a lower court has declared a law or ordinance to be unconstitutional, appeals from Public Utilities Commission decisions, certain appeals related to the initiative process, appeals from water courts, interlocutory relief, and the further appeal of cases already appealed from a county or municipal court to a district court judge, all of which are appealed directly to the Colorado Supreme Court. Unlike the other state courts, this court is a creature of statute and not mandated by the state constitution. There is a single geographical division of the Colorado Court of Appeals co-located in the same courthouse with the Colorado Supreme Court in Denver that handles all intermediate appellate court cases statewide. The Colorado Court of Appeals does not have any internal subject-matter divisions. It hears cases in panels of three judges, but it does not have an "en banc" review of panel decisions as the federal United States courts of appeals do.
District courts
The Colorado district courts are the state trial courts of general jurisdiction. There are 22 judicial districts in the state, which include one or more of Colorado's 64 counties. They have original jurisdiction in civil cases with any amount in controversy; felony criminal cases, domestic relations, family law, and cases involving minor cases (including adoption, dependency, juvenile delinquency, and paternity actions), probate, and mental health cases. Court filings in district court generally indicate the county within the district in which the action is filed and the district court generally conducts proceedings in that action in that county.
County courts
Colorado county courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. There is one county court in each of the 64 counties, including the consolidated city-counties of Denver and Broomfield. They hear misdemeanour cases, preliminary hearings in felony cases, evictions, civil cases not involving ownership of real property with an amount in controversy up to $25,000, and several other narrowly defined types of cases such as name changes and temporary restraining orders.