Killmer Lane, LLP

03/21/2026

Best Lawyers magazine has once again recognized several Killmer Lane, LLP lawyers as among the top lawyers in Colorado. David Lane was selected in the categories of Civil Rights Law, Labor & Employment Law, Criminal Defense and White Collar Criminal Defense, and First Amendment Law. Darold Killmer was honored as "2026 Lawyer of the Year" in Civil Rights Law, and was also selected in the category of Labor & Employment Law. Tom Kelley was selected once again in First Amendment Law and also Media Law. We appreciate that honor!

02/05/2026

Killmer Lane is proud to have obtained a $245,000 settlement for client Tajuddin Ashaheed, who was forced to shave his beard in prison in violation of his religious beliefs. KL Partner David Lane said, "As this county slides into fascism, it is critically important that the public takes every civil rights violation seriously, and never gives up the fight to protect our Constitution."

Tajuddin Ashaheed brought the lawsuit against the Colorado Department of Corrections nearly a decade ago, after he was forced to shave his beard as he entered prison in July 2016.

11/21/2025

Killmer Lane has obtained a $250,000 settlement in the case of Abraham Ybarra, who was twice tased outside his home by Grand Junction PD after officers stated he was carrying a knife. He was, in fact, carrying a barbecue lighter and a pair of harmonicas.

The City of Grand Junction is paying $250,000 to settle a lawsuit brought earlier this year against the Grand Junction Police Department by a man who alleged he was wrongfully

11/16/2025

Maddie Schaefer and David Lane of Killmer Lane, LLP successfully obtained vindication for our client Barry Zatkalik, who was wrongfully arrested for having exercised his Constitutional right of Free Speech protected by the First Amendment. His arrest by Adams County law enforcement officers violated the First and Fourth Amendments. We stand ready to hold law enforcement accountable when it violates the rights of those they are supposed to protect and serve.

“Can I get your name and badge number?” Barry Zatkalik asks the Adams County deputy in the body-worn-camera video. “… So I know who I’m making a complaint against.”

10/01/2025

KL is proud to be suing Mesa County Valley School District on behalf of our client Sydni Brandon, an exemplary Grand Junction High School girls' basketball coach who was unlawfully terminated because of her race, gender, and sexual orientation.

Former Grand Junction High School girls basketball coach Sydni Brandon is suing Mesa County Valley School District 51 alleging she was discriminated against for being a woman of color and

07/31/2025

Killmer Lane has obtained a $3.2 million settlement for the family of Jeffrey Melvin, marking the largest police misconduct settlement in the city’s history. “Justice has been a long time coming in this case,” said KL Partner Darold Killmer.

(COLORADO SPRINGS) — The City of Colorado Springs has agreed to a $3.2 million settlement with the family of Jeffrey Melvin, marking the largest police misconduct settlement in the city’s his…

05/23/2025

KL Partner David Lane lends his First Amendment expertise to this 9NEWS (KUSA) story about Colorado pastors who (incorrectly) claim a new law restricts their right to deliver transphobic sermons:

A group of evangelical pastors is incorrectly saying a new state law criminalizes sermons about transgender people.

05/23/2025

Killmer Lane is proud to represent the Montgomery family in a suit against Poudre School District that resulted in a $16.2 million settlement to 10 families. “It is utterly incomprehensible how a school district could allow a convicted child abuser to have access to utterly helpless children in this situation,” said David Lane. "Ultimately, this governmental failure will cost the taxpayers millions of dollars and these innocent children have been severely damaged."

The 2024 lawsuit against Poudre School District was on behalf of students abused by Tyler Zanella, who was hired despite a former child abuse conviction.

04/14/2025

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/us/politics/sept-11-confession-torture.html?unlocked_article_code=1._E4.GzlX.TFjI8p-U8g1I&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Some might have forgotten our country’s last atrocious torture program, Guantanamo Bay. These depraved acts of inhumanity have taken place in our name. It is appalling.

“Testimony derived from C.I.A. documents showed that Mr. Baluchi was routinely kept naked and beaten during his first days of agency custody in a program of “enhanced interrogation,” which was designed by two psychologists on contract to the C.I.A.

Student interrogators took turns slamming his head against a wall. He was deprived of sleep for 82 straight hours by shackling him at the ankles and wrists in a way that forced him to stand, naked, with a hood on his head. He was made to fear he would be drowned in a mock waterboarding technique in which he was laid out on a tarp as cold water was poured onto a towel covering his face.

By the time he reached Guantánamo, he had undergone 1,100 rounds of interrogation in C.I.A. custody, some with agency debriefers asking questions provided by the F.B.I.

“Just as the C.I.A. psychologists had planned, Mr. Ali learned that he was helpless to resist the torture, and that cooperation meant a lessening of abuse and an increase in rewards,” Colonel McCall wrote.

“The goal of the program was to condition him through torture and other inhumane and coercive methods to become compliant during any government questioning,” the judge also wrote. “The program worked.”

The critical question of whether the prisoner’s 2007 interrogations could be used at his capital trial has shadowed the case for years.

02/21/2025

"According to the family's attorneys — Killmer Lane, LLP — the jail didn't administer important medications to Purdy that he took for both his Parkinson's and dementia diagnoses, making him vulnerable to falls and injuries. The detention center destroyed video surveillance footage for the first 15 days of his jail stay, the attorneys said in a news release. The remaining footage shows more than 70 falls from July 10 through 18, 2023, but records only reported a total of four falls, according to the lawsuit."

The family of a man who died in the Jeffco Jail filed a suit against the jail and a contracted medical company, claiming medical indifference toward the 76-year-old, who had Parkinson's and dementia.

02/21/2025

Check out the full 9NEWS (KUSA) Investigates story on the shocking death of Jim Purdy in the Jefferson County Detention Facility:

A man with a history of Parkinson's and dementia repeatedly fell while in the Jefferson County jail. His family blames his death on "indifference."