Lindsay and the Klan

Judge Frederic Rodgers
Judge Rodgers began his Colorado judicial service on the Denver Juvenile Court in 1973. 

Judge Rodgers has written two articles for The Colorado Lawyer about the founding of the Court and its first judge, Ben Lindsey.  He is a graduate of Amherst College and Albany Law School.   He has been a judge since 1969 when he served as one of the first U.S. Army military judges in Vietnam and was awarded two Bronze Stars and the Air Medal.  He has also been chief deputy district attorney in Denver, variously titled referee, commissioner and magistrate of the Denver Juvenile Court and in private practice in Breckenridge, CO representing ski resort businesses and school districts.   He became a part-time municipal judge in 1978, and in 1986 Governor Richard Lamm appointed him judge of the Gilpin County Court, where he hears civil, criminal and traffic cases, including felonies, as well as juvenile, domestic relations, mental health and probate cases.  He has been retained by election four times since.

Since serving on the Denver Juvenile Court, he has been president of the Colorado Municipal Judges Association, the Colorado County Judges Association, the Denver Law Club, the National Conference of Special Court Judges, Rhone-Brackett American Inn of Court, Vice-chair of the Colorado Trial Judges Council and Chair of the ABA Judicial Division.  He is a member of the ABA House of Delegates, was on the ABA Nominating Committee, and represents the states of Arizona, Colorado and Oklahoma on the ABA Board of Governors.  He has been a member of the National Judicial College faculty since 1990 and on its Faculty Council from 1993, serving as Chair in 1999.  Judge Rodgers has taught at numerous national, international and state CLE programs and has published articles in The Judges’ Journal and The Colorado Lawyer.  He is co-author of the NJC benchbook Modern Judicial Ethics, and of Chapter 16 of the book “Improving the Administration of Justice” and serves on the editorial board of the Judges’ Journal.  He provided judicial training to the Vietnam Supreme People’s Court and Ministry of Justice for the State Department in 2002.

Elected a Fellow of both the American and Colorado Bar Foundations, his name appears in Who’s Who In America.  He skis, bikes, plays banjo, writes songs and had a low-level top-40 record 42 years ago.