Source: coloradopolitics.com 8/21/25
A Douglas County judge acted improperly by refusing to grant a defendant’s request to de-register as a sex offender a quarter-century after his offense because the man allegedly “smirked” at a hearing, Colorado’s second-highest court ruled on Thursday.
David Arthur _____ pleaded guilty in 2001 to one felony and one misdemeanor count related to sexual assault on a child. After completing four years of sex offender probation, a judge dismissed the felony, leaving Arthur guilty of only a misdemeanor. He subsequently completed sex offender treatment in 2006.
Ten years later, without further incident, Arthur petitioned under Colorado law to discontinue registering as a sex offender. Because he only stood convicted of a misdemeanor, his name did not even appear in the state’s database.
After a 2017 hearing, a judge denied the request because Arthur failed to present evidence showing he posed no risk to the community. However, the judge noted Arthur was free to ask again in the future.
In 2023, Arthur once more petitioned to discontinue his registration. He since moved to Georgia and had successfully sought to de-register there. He presented a Georgia judge’s order and a state assessment classifying him at the lowest risk of recidivism.
At a hearing before Chief Judge Ryan Stuart, Arthur’s attorney argued the evidence showed Arthur no longer presented a risk of offending again. The victim, identified as M.P., read a statement opposing Arthur’s request.
Stuart acknowledged “all of those pieces” of evidence cut in favor of Arthur’s request. But no one else saw “what I saw” during M.P.’s statement.
“As (M.P.) was describing the effects of this horrific sexual abuse that she endured as …
All I Need Is a Face:
In the case of People v. Kosak, the Colorado Court of Appeals unanimously found Chief Judge Ryan Stuart’s denial of David Arthur Kosak’s deregistration petition to be “manifestly arbitrary and unreasonable,” citing a lack of evidentiary contradiction and procedural fairness. Stuart’s ruling hinged on a perceived “smirk” during victim testimony—an affective cue no other party observed or verified. This reliance on nonverbal interpretation, absent clinical expertise or forensic validation, imposed an expressive burden not required by law and violated the registrant’s constitutional protections under the Compelled Expression Doctrine, which prohibits penalizing individuals for nonverbal conduct such as silence or facial neutrality. The Unconstitutional Conditions Doctrine further underscores the danger of conditioning legal relief on expressive conformity rather than statutory compliance. Despite presenting low-risk assessments and a Georgia court’s deregistration order, Kosak was denied a meaningful opportunity to respond, and the hearing was abruptly ended. The victim’s new allegations, introduced mid-hearing, were neither clarified nor tested under oath, and no mechanism was employed to verify their truthfulness. While courts rarely compel victims to undergo polygraph tests, precedent exists for voluntary testing in high-stakes credibility disputes, as documented by the National Institute of Justice. The asymmetry—where one face is scrutinized and one voice exempt—undermines adversarial justice and transforms the courtroom into a site of narrative protectionism.
Disclaimer: This analysis is based on publicly available appellate findings and constitutional doctrine. It does not constitute legal advice and should not be interpreted as a substitute for professional counsel.
I am relieved the three-judge Court of Appeals made their judgement based upon evidence: the lack of vetting on the new evidence introduced by the victim and the lack of evidence that proves the defendant remains a risk of recidivism. The appeal ruling truly dressed down the lower court judge handling of the petition to de-register “manifestly arbitrary and unreasonable”.
Though, I do wonder now that the defendant has won his case if he can sue the state for libel and slander through the judge’s “manifestly arbitrary and unreasonable” handling of the petition in spite of the actual and vetted evidence. I hope so b/c that will send a more profound statement not to act so carelessly when the state of GA has to shell out millions with falsely identifying a defendant as a risk to society and keeping the defendant on the registry for an additional two years.
If something like that would trigger a judge, then it just goes to show it’s all about emotion and hatred, not fairness or justice. They expect docility, meekness and doormat material basically. They don’t like it when you fight back because you’re not easy to walk all over and subjugate. They expect you to be subservient and beholden so they can gloat.
They expect us to get in a fetal position like some beat dog in a corner. Screw that!
To smirk, or not to smirk. That is the question