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Colorado

Political repression plays out state by state — shaped by local institutions, prosecutors, and movements for defense. These are the documented political prisoners and cases the census holds for Colorado.

90Documented
3In custody
82Released

Eras of repression in Colorado

Where Colorado’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.

1950s 18 1910s 11 1980s 9 1970s 9 1930s 8 2020s 7

Documented cases

90 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.

Eric Brandt
In Custody
Eric Patrick Brandt, age 49, an anti-government Denver protester, was arrested December 26, 2019 for posting t...
Ricardo Palmera
In Custody
Simon Trinidad was a long-time leader in mass movements for social change in Colombia, and is a top negotiator...
Grant Barnes
Released
Grant Barnes is an environmentalist who was arrested in 2007 for setting fire to a number of SUV’s in Denver,...
Cameron Bishop
Released
Cameron David Bishop was an anti-war radical associated with Students for a Democratic Society who became, in...
Oliver Sachio Coe
Released
Oliver Sachio Coe participated in the same August 1998 Colorado missile-site action as Daniel Sicken, joining...
Perley Doe
Released
Perley Doe, from Denver, Colorado, began serving his sentence on January 11, 1918.
Phineas Eastman
Released
Phineas Eastman, from New Raymer, Colorado, was convicted at the mass IWW trial in Wichita and sentenced to se...
Robert Ellsberg
Released
Robert Ellsberg is a writer and publisher who participated in the Catholic Worker movement. He joined the 1978...
Elisabeth Epps
Elisabeth Epps is an American activist, lawyer, and former member of the Colorado House of Representatives, re...
Allen Ginsberg
Released
Beat Generation poet, then teaching at Naropa Institute in Boulder, was a prominent participant in the Rocky F...
Rodolfo Gonzales
Released
Rodolfo 'Corky' Gonzales was a former featherweight boxer from Denver who founded the Crusade for Justice in 1...
Antonio Guerrero
Released
Antonio Guerrero Rodriguez is part of the Cuban Five, serving a sentence of life imprisonment plus 10 years, a...
Jennifer Haines
Plowshares peace activist named as a petitioner in the 1990 Special International Tribunal on Political Prison...
Paul Kleinbord
Released
Paul Kleinbord, a Communist Party leader in Colorado, was among the Colorado Communists jailed for contempt in...
John R. Lawson
Released
John R. Lawson was a United Mine Workers of America organizer and a leader of the 1913-14 Colorado Coalfield W...
Henry Maki
Released
Henry Maki, born Henrik "Heikki" Iivari Maentaka in Ähtäri, Finland, was a Finnish-American hard-rock miner an...
James Marshall
Shot a driver (Danny Pruitt, who died) during a June 2020 Alamosa protest. Sentence: 11 years prison. Verified...
Francisco Kiko Martinez
Released
Francisco Eugenio "Kiko" Martínez (born November 26, 1946 in Alamosa, Colorado) was a Chicano-movement attorne...
Julie A. McElvain
Released
Julie A. McElvain was one of 22 Greenpeace activists federally charged after the September 12, 2019 blockade o...
J. A. Miller
Released
J. A. Miller, from Denver, Colorado, began serving a two-year prison sentence in April 1918.
Ehret Nottingham
Released
Ehret Nottingham is a self-described community organizer from Fort Collins, Colorado who was arrested on March...
James Omura
Released
James Matsumoto Omura was a Japanese American journalist and the English-language editor of the Denver newspap...
Chelcee Price
Released
Chelcee Price, age 23, of Denver, Greenpeace 28 - September 2019 Houston Ship Channel bridge rappel.
Dylan Robinson
Released
Dylan Shakespeare Robinson was charged in one of the highest-profile arson cases arising from protests followi...

Institutions in Colorado

Prisons, jails, and detention centers in Colorado that appear in the census’s case files.

ADX FlorenceFlorence, Colorado
3 cases
FDC EnglewoodLittleton, Colorado
3 cases
Colorado State PenitentiaryCañon City, Colorado
3 cases
Jefferson County Jail
3 cases
Mount San Rafael Hospital / Trinidad jail (militia custody)Trinidad, Colorado
1 case
Denver County JailDenver, Colorado
1 case
Colorado Department of Corrections
1 case
Limon Correctional FacilityLimon, Colorado
1 case