(1) No court shall be opened nor shall any judicial business be transacted on Sunday or any legal holiday except for the following purposes:
(a) To give, upon their request, instruction to a jury then deliberating on their verdict;
(b) To receive a verdict or discharge a jury;
(c) For the exercise of the powers of a judge in a criminal action or in a proceeding of a criminal nature;
(d) When it appears by the affidavit of the plaintiff, or someone in his behalf, in cases for the recovery of specific personal property, that the defendant is about to conceal, dispose of, or remove such property out of the jurisdiction of the court, an order for taking possession of the same may be issued and the writ or process executed on any day;
(e) When an application for writ of attachment is made, if it shall appear by the affidavit of the plaintiff, or someone in his behalf, that the defendant is about to dispose of, conceal, or remove property subject to execution or attachment out of the jurisdiction of the court, a writ of attachment may be issued and executed on any day.
(2) When the day fixed for the opening of a court falls on any of the days mentioned in this section, the court shall stand adjourned until the next succeeding day.
Source: L. 1887: p. 213, § 416. Code 08: § 451. Code 21: §§ 451, 453. Code 35: § 453. CRS 53: § 37-1-20. C.R.S. 1963: § 37-1-20.
ANNOTATION
Verdicts may be received on a judicial holiday. Receiving a verdict is a ministerial act performed for the jury in a judicial proceeding. The weight of authority is to the end that verdicts, the result of trials started and concluded before Sunday, may be received on Sunday and statutory holidays. Carr v. People, 99 Colo. 477, 63 P.2d 1221 (1936) (decided under repealed § 23 of appendix B, R.C.P. Colo., CSA, 1935, which was similar to this section).
Judgment entered on legal holiday not void and becomes effective next business day. Subsection (1) does not provide that any judicial business transacted in violation of its provisions is void. Rather, the statute is silent as to the effect of any order entered or other judicial business transacted in violation of its prohibitions. Subsection (2) provides that the effect of having a day fixed for the opening of a court that falls on a prohibited day is that "the court shall stand adjourned until the next succeeding day." Thus, the effect of the trial court's entry of an order reviving judgment on a legal holiday was not to invalidate the order but, rather, merely to postpone its effective date until the next day the courts were open. Arvada 1st Indus. Bank v. Hutchison, 15 P.3d 292 (Colo. App. 2000).