Colorado lawmakers are set to introduce a pair of bills in the next legislative session that would bar municipal courts from imposing more severe sentences than state courts for the same crimes, as well as limit city courts from criminalizing missed hearings.
The first bill, sponsored by Rep. Javier Mabrey, a Denver Democrat, seeks to address disparities in sentences between state courts and their lower-level municipal counterparts.
Legislative reforms in 2021 significantly reduced maximum penalties for a host of low-level, nonviolent crimes in Colorado’s state courts. But municipal courts, which operate individually and are not part of the state judicial system, were not included in the statute.
As a result, potential jail sentences in Colorado’s city courts now often exceed the state’s limits for lesser crimes, leading to a cascade of legal challenges now sitting before the Colorado Supreme Court.
The proposed legislation would not allow cities to punish people beyond the maximum sentence outlined in state statute for the same crime.
For example, Colorado city ordinances allow for a maximum punishment of 364 days in jail — even for crimes like petty theft or trespassing. At the state level, those offenses can only be punishable with up to 10 days in jail. Cities, under the proposed bill, would be forced to stay under that 10-day number.
If there’s no comparable state-level offense, the maximum sentence for city offenses would default to the state-level petty offense criteria: up to 10 days in jail or a fine of up to $300 or both.
The legislation comes as some cities, like Aurora and Pueblo, have beefed up their local ordinances in response to the state reforms, passing mandatory-minimum jail requirements for certain low-level, non-violent offenses that carry little to no jail time in state courts.
A Denver Post analysis in September of 468 theft and trespassing convictions across 10 of Colorado’s largest cities found defendants on average served five times more jail time in municipal court than state court — but that the difference was just a matter of days. Overall, people spent little time in jail after their convictions on those crimes across both municipal and state courts.
Police also have significant sway in how much jail time an individual will face for a range of petty crimes, an arrangement that concerns civil rights advocates. Officers have wide leeway and little direction over whether to send a person to city or state court — a difference that could mean the possibility of 364 days in jail or 10.
Mabrey said Coloradans shouldn’t see different punishments depending on where you live in the state.
“I think that fundamentally violates someone’s rights,” he said.
The Colorado Supreme Court is considering the legality of these sentence disparities, and a ruling could have wide-ranging impacts on municipal codes throughout the state.
The Colorado Municipal League, which represents the state’s cities and towns, declined to comment on the proposed legislation. In briefs before the state Supreme Court, the league argued that the Colorado Constitution explicitly allows for home-rule, meaning cities have the freedom to legislate on matters of local concern.
The 2021 bill that lowered penalties in state courts, meanwhile, specifically declined to include municipal courts, the organization noted.
“In 2021, the General Assembly expressly confined SB21-271 to state crimes and penalties and showed no intent to mandate uniform penalties across municipal and state courts,” the Municipal League wrote. “Nothing in SB21-271 prohibits home rule municipalities from imposing more stringent penalties for crimes committed in their jurisdiction than that imposed by the state for violations of a corresponding state law.”
Mabrey’s bill also clarifies that municipal court defendants have the same right to counsel as those involved in state courts.
The Post in October found poor and unhoused individuals in Grand Junction’s municipal court routinely pleaded guilty and were sentenced to jail without attorneys present in violation of their constitutional rights.
“It’s kind of sad we’re having to pass a law to follow the constitution,” Mabrey said.
The second bill, spearheaded by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, would prohibit cities from criminalizing missed court hearings.
In many Colorado city courts, judges issue warrant for the arrest of defendants who miss court appearances, and those defendants are then jailed until their next appearance to ensure they attend. In those scenarios, the failure-to-appear charges are remedial, not punitive, and usually do not carry their own jail sentences.
But in some cities, like Pueblo, failing to appear had led to a separate charge — contempt of court — that was punishable by up to 364 days in jail per count. The ACLU bill would disallow that practice, which Pueblo officials say they’ve discontinued.
A Post investigation in July found Pueblo’s municipal judges regularly used contempt charges to punish those who failed to appear for court proceedings.
These charges — in some cases dozens of them — inflated sentences for defendants who otherwise faced little to no jail time on minor city offenses like loitering, trespassing and shoplifting, The Post found. Pueblo city judges sent people to jail for months on charges that in other Colorado courts are punished by one or two days in jail, if that.
A district court judge in Pueblo last month ruled that practice to be unconstitutional and released several people from jail.
“It feels like a scheme for keeping poor or unhoused people in county jail,” said Catherine Ordoñez, policy counsel at the ACLU. “It needs a state legislative solution.”
The bill, sponsored by Democratic state Sens. Nick Hinrichsen, Mike Weissman and Rep. Michael Carter, would still allow judges to use contempt of court in other situations, just not as a criminal charge. Judges would still be able to issue bench warrants if someone fails to appear.
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