Colorado judge lifts gag order in teen murder trial

An Eagle, Colorado, judge issued a gag order on Dec. 16, 2025, prohibiting the media from reporting information disclosed in open court during a murder case involving a teenager.

The Vail Daily filed a motion to vacate the publishing gag, and it was lifted the next day, according to the outlet and court filings reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

The newspaper reported that Judge Rachel Olguin-Fresquez imposed the order orally during a preliminary hearing in the case of a 17-year-old accused of killing a younger teenage boy during a fight in 2024.

On the first day of hearings on Dec. 15, the defense moved to restrict public access to the proceedings, which were being livestreamed, arguing that it could jeopardize the defendant’s ability to receive a fair trial.

The defense also asked the judge to impose a gag order limiting future media coverage. It alleged that the Vail Daily’s stories — which included photos of the victim and his family — were “highly inflammatory.”

At that point, Olguin-Fresquez halted the livestream but did not limit media coverage.

However, the next day she imposed the gag order, citing the Vail Daily’s story about the Dec. 15 hearing.

“Looking at today’s paper, the court is concerned that the ability to obtain a conviction or the ability to obtain a not-guilty verdict is being compromised by evidence reported in the newspaper,” Olguin-Fresquez said.

Olguin-Fresquez also alleged that the Vail Daily printed “things that didn’t happen in trial.” The paper denied that claim.

In a motion filed later Dec. 16, Steve Zansberg, the attorney for the Vail Daily, argued that the judge’s order was an unconstitutional prior restraint because it prohibited the outlet from publishing “information on a matter of legitimate public concern that was lawfully obtained by its reporter in open court proceedings.”

“Supreme Court precedent makes it unmistakably clear that a court cannot order a newspaper not to publish information that has been disclosed in open court,” Zansberg wrote, also citing rulings by the Colorado Supreme Court.

Olguin-Fresquez, in lifting the gag order Dec. 17, “warned the media against using the names of the juveniles involved in the case,” the Vail Daily reported.

The paper noted that it used the teen’s name because he was charged as an adult — though his attorneys were seeking to have his case transferred back to juvenile court — and that the victim’s family had granted permission for the media to use the victim’s name.