A federal judge has dismissed a civil-rights case against the Colorado School of Mines without addressing the merits of whether school officials concealed from a dead student's parents that he was the victim of a homicide.

Demetrios “Rio” Nicholas, a 19-year-old freshman, was found dead in the shower of his dormitory suite early on Dec. 6, 2001. A coroner who examined the body at the scene found he died of “cocaine toxicity” and the school announced in a campus-wide e-mail that he had accidentally overdosed.

That explanation has not satisfied Nicholas's parents, who sued four CSM officials in October 2005, alleging they conspired to cover up “any hint of a homicide” and so protect the school from any adverse publicity.

John and Brenda Nicholas said the positioning of Rio's body in the shower was “staged” and it was “evident at the death scene” that the body “had been moved there to create the appearance of an unattended, self-induced death, thereby to conceal a homicide.”

But U.S. District Judge Robert E. Blackburn did not consider those alleged facts in summarily dismissing the case. The plaintiffs' claims, he ruled in a recent order, were time-barred since they knew or should have known their right to access to the courts had been violated more than two years before they filed suit.

“The undisputed facts in the record demonstrate that the plaintiffs had such an awareness no later than May 7, 2003,” he concluded, referring to a letter that John Nicholas wrote that day to the Jefferson County, Colo., district attorney.

“We have been so screwed around by the [CSM] authorities,” Nicholas complained. The letter also said school police “were more concerned with protecting the school’s reputations and their own butts than getting to the truth.”

The plaintiffs had argued they filed within the statute of limitations because their suspicions of a coverup were not confirmed until the spring and summer of 2005. “I was raised to respect law enforcement,” John Nicholas testified in a deposition. “... And once I'm told something by an authority, that's the deal, that's the truth.”

An expert hired by the plaintiffs found in April 2005 that the accidental overdose theory was not plausible and the following June, a forensic pathologist concluded that Rio's body was moved into the shower.

The evidence of a homicide is far from conclusive. But Blackburn ignored the summary judgment standard by failing to view the evidence “in the light most favorable” to the plaintiffs –- including their explanation of the delay in filing suit.

“At a bare minimum, it remains a question of material fact as to when Plaintiffs knew or should have known their son did not die from a self-inflicted cocaine overdose,” the Nicholases said in a court brief.

Earlier this year, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Blackburn's summary dismissal of a high-profile sexual assault case against the University of Colorado. The Nicholases have appealed his ruling in their case to the same court -– and they, too, should get their chance before a jury.

By Matthew Heller
11/27/07