Who Is Judge Rebecca Rankin Freyre? Appointed by Hickenlooper in 2015, Rated 9-0, and on Every Douglas County Ballot This November

Rebecca Rankin Freyre is a judge on the Colorado Court of Appeals, and her name is on every ballot in Douglas County this fall with one question attached: shall she be retained in office? Nobody is running against her, she is not allowed to campaign, and the search traffic suggests a lot of people are trying to figure out who she is before they fill in the oval. Here is the answer, from the court's own records and the volunteer commission that evaluated her.

Who appointed her, and when

Gov. John Hickenlooper named her to the Court of Appeals on September 18, 2015, filling the vacancy created when Judge Richard Gabriel moved up to the Colorado Supreme Court. She was sworn in on November 16, 2015. That is the whole answer to the most-searched question about her: no later governor has had a say, because Colorado judges stay on the bench through yes-or-no retention votes, not reappointment.

Under Colorado's merit system, a nominating commission sends the governor a short list for each vacancy, the governor picks, and the new judge serves a two-year provisional term before facing voters. Freyre's first retention vote came in 2018, and she won it. This November she is asking for a full eight-year term, the standard term for the Court of Appeals.

What she did before the bench

She spent her whole career before the bench on the defense side. The court's own biography lists her as a deputy state public defender in the Arapahoe County Trial Office from 1991 to 2005, representing indigent defendants, then in the Public Defender's Appellate Division in Denver from 2005 to 2015, handling appeals of felony convictions and sentences. Before law school she worked in banking consulting and at Oppenheimer Funds, and clerked at a Denver criminal defense firm. She took an economics degree at Smith College in 1982 and her law degree at the University of Denver in 1990.

What the performance commission found

The State Commission on Judicial Performance, eleven volunteer citizens who evaluate every appellate judge up for retention, interviewed her, read a selection of her opinions, watched her at oral argument and surveyed attorneys and judges. Its 2026 finding: she meets performance standards, by a vote of 9-0, with one commissioner absent and one seat vacant.

The narrative is unusually warm. The commission called her written opinions "thoughtful, well-reasoned, and drafted with clarity that makes the information accessible to litigants, practitioners, and the public," described her demeanor at argument as "respectful, engaging, and present," and summed her up as "an exemplary jurist and a valuable member of the Court of Appeals." Respondents praised "her strong writing skills, astute oral argument questions" and "strong legal analysis for reaching fair outcomes in gray areas."

The survey behind it is small, which is typical for an appellate judge and worth knowing anyway. The commission's contractor invited 344 attorneys and 253 judges; 3 attorneys and 24 judges answered. All 27 said she meets standards. Her overall score was 3.9 on a scale where 4 is "outstanding performance" and 2 is "adequate," up from interim scores of 3.4 to 3.7 in each year from 2020 through 2025. In 2018, her first review, 30 attorneys and 31 judges responded; 82 percent of the attorneys and 97 percent of the judges said she met standards, and the commission's vote was also 9-0.

The "voting record" question

There is no voting record to find, and the search for one reflects a reasonable confusion. Legislators vote; appellate judges write and join opinions. Her record is the body of Court of Appeals decisions she has authored or participated in since late 2015, and those are public: the Colorado Judicial Branch publishes them in its Colorado Opinion Database at research.coloradojudicial.gov, searchable by judge, case and year. We have not reviewed a sample of her opinions for this page and will not characterize them beyond what the commission wrote. Nor does she have a platform, endorsements or a party; retention judges do not campaign, and we found no organized opposition to her.

Other roles

She served as the court's Deputy Chief Judge from January 2022 to January 2026, according to the commission; the court's own biography page still lists the role as current. Since July 2019 she has been the judicial division's trustee on the board of Colorado PERA, the public employees' retirement association; she became its vice chair in January 2025 and its chair in July 2025, a term that runs to June 2027. Her civic list on the court's site runs from mock trial coaching at Arapahoe High School in the 1990s to justice-system education at two middle schools and committee work on the state's rules of evidence and criminal jury instructions.

How to vote on her

She appears in the judicial retention section of the ballot with five other Court of Appeals judges and one Supreme Court justice. A "yes" keeps her for eight years; a "no" removes her at the end of this term and the governor appoints a replacement; a majority of the votes cast on the question decides it. All thirteen judges on the Douglas County ballot drew a "meets standards" finding this year; our page on all thirteen has every narrative and vote count.

More: every race and measure on your ballot, the November ballot guide, and where to vote. We do not endorse candidates or take positions on judicial retention. Corrections to hello@discoverdougco.com.