Griffith v. Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, et al.

The ACLU of Colorado filed an appeal on behalf of a person incarcerated in the Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) whose case challenging a prison disciplinary conviction was dismissed because he missed the deadline for filing. Our client alleges he did everything he could to file on time and only missed the deadline because of CDOC’s own delay in providing him the documents he needed. The lower court agreed he had shown good cause for filing late but concluded it had no choice but to ignore those circumstances and apply the deadline strictly to bar his claims.

ACLU of Colorado lawyers filed an appeal on Thursday, November 20, 2025, on behalf of a man imprisoned in the Colorado Department of Corrections whose case challenging a prison disciplinary conviction, which he brought without the assistance of counsel, was dismissed because he missed the deadline for filing.

The district court had initially granted an extension to file, finding he had good cause for missing the deadline based on his allegations that CDOC itself had prevented him from filing on time. The disciplinary conviction he sought to challenge had resulted in him being placed under severe restrictions that deprived him of physical access to the law library and forced him to rely on CDOC staff to access its resources. Although he had timely submitted a request for the necessary forms, CDOC withheld them until the deadline had long passed.

Although he ultimately filed his complaint within the new deadline imposed by the district court, the CDOC Defendants moved to dismiss, arguing that the complaint was untimely, that the applicable deadline was strict, and that the district court was without power to extend it. The district court agreed with the Defendants and dismissed the case. The ACLU filed this appeal to challenge that decision.

On April 1, 2026, the ACLU of Colorado filed its Opening Brief asking that the Court of Appeals reverse the dismissal. We argued that the district court had authority to extend the deadline for good cause under the plain language of the rule and that any contrary reading would violate Mr. Griffith’s rights to due process and access to the courts.

The Spero Justice Center and Korey Wise Innocence Project at Colorado Law filed a supportive Amicus Curiae Brief arguing that construing the rule as a strict jurisdictional deadline is beyond the power of the judiciary and unconstitutionally cuts off judicial review of quasi-judicial government decisions.