Colorado v. Travis
Annotate this CaseOn the day her trial was set to begin, April Travis told the court that she was hoping she could have more time “to look for and pay for an attorney.” The trial court denied the request to continue the case, noting that the trial had previously been continued and Travis was already being represented by a public defender. Travis appealed that decision, arguing that her request to look for a lawyer was an invocation of her Sixth Amendment right to be represented by counsel of her choice. A division of the court of appeals agreed, concluding that because Travis had invoked that right, the trial court was required to make a record that it had reviewed each of the factors elaborated in Colorado v. Brown, 322 P.3d 214. The Colorado Supreme Court found that the right to be represented by counsel of the defendant’s choosing was not implicated by a bare request to “look for and pay for” a new lawyer. The trial court was therefore not obligated to review the Brown factors, and its decision to deny Travis’s trial-day continuance request was not an abuse of discretion.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.