Shane Kato Crews
How Judge Crews decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Controlling precedent ends the inquiry. Where a binding Supreme Court case is directly on point, Crews applies it without entertaining arguments to anticipate its reversal -- stare decisis is dispositive even when the plaintiff frames it as the court's discretion.
“In the hierarchy that is the federal court system, and under the doctrine of stare decisis, the Court is required to 'follow the case which directly controls.'”
Procedural preferences
Liberally construes pro se filings but will not act as the litigant's advocate or supply missing jurisdictional facts/contacts; a concession of insufficient information is fatal.
“Plaintiffs are all pro se, and therefore, the Court liberally construes their filings but without acting as their advocate.”
Gives pro se litigants graduated process before a failure-to-prosecute dismissal (multiple OSCs, re-mailings) but enforces the local rule requiring current contact information.
“the Court finds that Plaintiff has failed to prosecute her case.”
Cautions
To overcome qualified immunity at the pleading stage, identify on-point Supreme Court or Tenth Circuit precedent -- generic invocation of a constitutional right will not do.
“a right cannot be defined at an unacceptably high level of generality, and merely citing to the First Amendment is as general as it gets. Overcoming qualified immunity requires more.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“For the reasons shared above, the MOTION TO DISMISS is GRANTED. It is ORDERED that the dismissals ordered herein shall be without prejudice.”
“The Court FURTHER DENIES Plaintiffs' Motion to Change Venue, Dkt. 15, as MOOT.”
“Defendant El Paso County, L. Stengle and R. Snipe's Motion to Dismiss Pursuant to F.R.C.P. 8(a), 12(b)(1) and (6) (Dkt. 26), and Defendant Wellpath's Motion to Dismiss (Dkt. 27), are all DENIED AS MOOT.”
“the Court respectfully DENIES Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment (Dkt. 101) and GRANTS Defendants' Motions for Summary Judgment (Dkts. 99, 100, 102).”
“the Court respectfully DENIES Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment (Dkt. 101)”
“Defendants' Motion to Dismiss (Dkt. 50) is GRANTED. ... Because Defendants are entitled to qualified immunity, Plaintiff's claims are dismissed with prejudice.”
“the Court GRANTS Defendant Noble Energy, Inc.'s Motion for Summary Judgment and DENIES Mike Boulter and Boulter, LLC's Partial Motion for Summary Judgment.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Small, non-representative sample mixing magistrate-era consent settlements (fast) with one fully-litigated district-judge case (Faustin, 790 days). This is not a distribution; a representative district-era civil-duration distribution would require a broader sample.
Put Judge Crews's record to work
Ezel drafts and answers grounded in this exact profile: how Judge Crews actually rules, not a generic AI guess.
Opens in Ezel Pro. Every answer is grounded in Judge Crews's own signed orders and cites them.