Denver County CO Archives Obituaries.....Kelley, Donald E. September 17, 1995
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Melba Deuprey noodlestheclown@comcast.net December 11, 2006, 6:20 pm

Rocky Mountain News 9/22/1995
Ex-Supreme Court justice Kelley dies at 87

	Donald E. Kelley, who capped a life of public service in two states 
with a dozen years as a justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, died Sunday at 
the Heritage Park Manor in Arapahoe County.  He was 87.
	Kelley, one of the last men elected to the state Supreme Court, 
campaigned on a platform of removing the state's judiciary system from politics 
and setting up a selection process allowing the governor to fill vacancies from 
lists approved by nominating commissions.
	The last election of judicial candidates was in 1966, when Kelley was 
elected.  That year, Coloradans adopted a constitutional amendment adopting the 
merit system by which judges are appointed by must stand for retention vote at 
regular intervals.
	Kelley retired from the Supreme Court on Jan. 31, 1979.
	Born in McCook, Neb., on Jan. 29, 1908, he attended a one-room grade 
school in Red Willow County, Neb., and was influenced toward a law career by 
his lawyer grandfather.
	He earned his law degree from the University of Nebraska in 1930 and 
married Georgia E. Pyne the same year.  They have two sons.
	Kelley practiced law in McCook for eight years during the Depression 
before becoming an assistant attorney general in 1939.
	He was county attorney for Red Willow County before he moved to Denver 
in 1945.  He practiced law eight years before becoming U.S. Attorney for 
Colorado in 1953, a post he held for six years.
	Kelley was Denver city attorney for two years, was in private practice 
another five years, and served in the state Senate for four years before he was 
elected to the state Supreme Court.  He was chairman of the Senate Judiciary 
Committee on Fair Housing while in the Senate.
	During his 12 years on the bench, he served seven years as deputy chief 
justice during the administration of former Chief Justice Edward Pringle.
	While on the high court, Kelley saw sweeping changes in the 
administration of the state court system.  Initially, it was difficult to 
persuade judges from the elective era to accept the change because it somewhat 
diminished their independence, Kelley said in a 1978 interview.
	But eventually, "the older judges saw the merits of the new system, the 
whole atmosphere changed, and I think now there's great cohesion in the court 
system," he said.  "Politics influenced decisions, in my opinion, at both the 
trial court and the appellate court levels to some degree" under the elective 
system.
	Of all the cases the court handed down during his tenure, one written 
by Kelley brought the greatest response and the strongest criticism.
	The court held that a young man's conviction for desecration of an 
American flag by sewing a small flag to the seat of his jeans should be 
reversed because the action was token free speech.
	A thick court file holds the few favorable comments and overwhelming 
adverse reactions to that.  "I was un-American and all the nasty words, 
unpatriotic, whatever," Kelley said, recalling the letters just before he 
retired.
	His most widely cited opinion was one setting new personal-injury law 
in 1971.  It eliminated old requirements of a landowner to maintain safe 
property depending on the type of person who entered the premises - a 
trespasser, for example - and instead held that the landowner must keep his 
property reasonably safe.
	He successfully stood for retention to the court in 1976.
	Kelley is survived by his wife, two sons, John M. "Mike" Kelley, of 
Mesa, Ariz., and Donald Pyne Kelley, of Littleton; a sister, Bea Fagan, of 
Green Valley, Ariz.; a brother, Robert Kelley, of California; and four 
grandchildren.
	Memorial services are at 1 p.m. today at Fairmount Mortuary Chapel, 430 
S. Quebec St.  Entombment will be at Fairmount Mausoleum.
	Those who wish may make memorial contributions to the Denver Bar 
Association - Thursday Night Bar, to assist indigents requiring legal services.

Additional Comments:
Colorado U.S. Attorney 1953-1958
Colorado Supreme Court Justice 1967-1979

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