The Colorado Supreme Court found itself under siege—not in the courtroom, but in their own homes—after its 2023 decision blocking Donald Trump from appearing on the state’s primary ballot.
Chief Justice Monica Márquez recently revealed the scale of the intimidation campaign, describing a storm of threats that followed the ruling, which invoked the 14th Amendment’s ban on officials tied to insurrection. Though the justices were divided in their 4-3 decision, Márquez said all seven bore the fallout.
Phones rang endlessly with venom, inboxes filled with hate, and voicemails dripped with fury. Some justices became targets of “swatting,” a tactic where false reports sent heavily armed officers storming into their homes. One justice endured a nighttime raid by nine officers, weapons drawn, flashlights blazing—an ordeal so dangerous colleagues were urged to vacate their homes.
The harassment didn’t stop there. Families were bombarded with “symbolic” pizza deliveries meant to remind them that strangers knew their addresses. Some justices were doxxed, receiving racist and homophobic messages, their personal numbers weaponized against them. Others found themselves mysteriously signed up for pornographic subscriptions, a grotesque form of harassment aimed at humiliation.
The threats emerged just weeks after their ruling, only to be undone in March 2024 when the U.S. Supreme Court restored Trump’s ballot access nationwide. By then, the damage to judicial security was clear: judges were being dragged into the crosshairs of political rage.
“No judge should ever have to weigh the safety of their family against the duty to rule on the law,” Márquez warned at a recent forum. “If fear becomes the deciding factor, our justice system itself begins to crumble.”
Despite the flood of investigations, no one has been held accountable for the campaign of threats and intimidation.
