Former Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice Joseph Quinn dies at age 90
Former Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice Joseph Quinn has died. He was 90.
Quinn, who died May 18, was appointed to the court in 1980 and his colleagues named him chief justice in 1985. He served until 1993 when he retired from the high court. He continued to work as a senior judge in the 18th Judicial District, which includes Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties. He was an avid runner, a father of five, and read philosophy in his leisure time.
He grew up in industrial Elizabeth, New Jersey, the son of a postal inspector. As an 18-year-old, Quinn enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and fought in Korea. He returned from that conflict and studied at St. Peter’s College in New Jersey, graduating with honors in 1957. He went to the Rutgers Law School and received an LL.B. law degree in 1961.
He moved west to Denver and worked as an aide to Chief Justice Leonard Sutton. He spent four years in private practice, then was appointed in 1966 to the Office of the Denver Public Defender in 1966. Three years later, he moved to the Office of the Colorado Public Defender. In 1971, he returned to private practice, concentrating on criminal defense. He was picked in 1973 to be a district court judge in Denver.
Quinn also served as an instructor at the University of Denver College of Law from 1976 to 1982, and he was a member of the American and Colorado bar associations.
Legal colleagues remember him as a judge who emphasized proper preparation.
“He expected nothing less from the attorneys appearing in front of him than he did of himself,” Colorado Supreme Court Justice Carlos Samour said in a statement on Thursday, lauding Quinn as “a great jurist and a wonderful human being.”
“He prepared extensively for every case, whether it was a county court DUI case or a district court felony murder trial,” Samour said. “Those of us who appeared in front of him learned tremendously from his thoughtful preparation, deliberation, and dedication to the rule of law. In my opinion, those of us who had the opportunity to learn from him and strive to achieve his standard of professionalism are better attorneys and judicial officers for it.”
Longtime Denver attorney James Lyons said Quinn “was respected by the bar as fair, decent, compassionate and dedicated to the rule of law.” Lyons sometimes ran during the lunch hour with Quinn. “Despite the age difference,” he said, “I always labored to keep up.”
When supreme court justices went into conference discussing issues before handing down decisions, Quinn “was very thorough in his analysis and understanding of the legal issues,” and he stressed the need for clarity “so as not to cause confusion in the trial courts,” said his former high court colleague William Neighbors, who served as deputy chief justice when Quinn was chief justice.
“He had a great appreciation for people and their problems. And the law was the way to get issues resolved in court — and not in the streets,” Neighbors said. “He was very empathetic as a public defender for people charged with crimes, empathetic for people on all sides of an issue, trying to understand how, whatever happened, it affected human beings. That’s why he read a lot of philosophy and studied it.”