A bill that would restrict a municipal court judge in the state of Colorado from imposing a jail sentence on someone for failing to appear passed its second reading in the state Senate on Feb. 10.
The bill, brought forth by Democratic Sens. Nick Hinrichsen and Mike Weissman and Reps. Michael Carter and Shannon Bird, prohibits a failure to appear from forming the basis of a municipal criminal charge.
An amendment presented at the committee hearing on Feb. 5 that aimed to clarify that the bill didn’t impact a municipal court’s inherent judicial contempt power or prohibit a municipal judge from issuing a bench warrant or from weighing the failure to appear in a subsequent bond hearing passed without objection.
Hinrichsen told the committee that in a few of the state’s municipalities, including Pueblo, the district he represents, municipal courts have passed ordinances that allow a failure to appear to be charged as contempt of court, with the charge carrying a sentence of up to 364 days.
“This creates a few problematic issues. For one, a court should not be the charging authority in a criminal case. That undermines the court’s neutrality and creates, I would argue, a serious violation of separation of powers between the court and prosecution,” Hinrichsen said. “Secondly, when contempt of court penalties associated with a failure to appear exceed the permissible penalties of the underlying charge, as is often the case, you get sentences that are wildly disproportionate to the actual crime.”
He told the committee that the municipal court in Pueblo has been sued over the practice, and that the suits have alleged civil rights and due process violations.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed three habeas petitions in October 2024 for three individuals in Pueblo who were jailed on municipal contempt. In a press release about the suit, the organization noted it spoke to several other individuals who had been affected by the ordinance.
In November 2024, a judge ruled that the contempt convictions were void and discharged the sentences of the three individuals, according to the press release.
Emma Mclean-Riggs, senior staff attorney at the ACLU, spoke to the committee about the lawsuit and testified in support of the bill.
“This bill is not about preventing municipalities from bringing people to court to continue their substantive offense,” Mclean-Riggs said. “This bill is about curtailing a particular abusive practice that in the only place we know of that it has been implemented, was implemented so unconstitutionally that it was overturned in a habeas hearing, not an appeals case.”
Weissman, the other Senate sponsor of the bill, told the committee that he had been talking about the issue with the co-prime sponsors of the bill since 2023.
“This issue has arisen in particular out of a few areas of our state. I was more than willing to join this effort, because, for me, among other things, this is a rule of law issue,” Weissman said. “This goes to pretty fundamental questions of how our systems of justices work, or sometimes don’t work as we think that they should.”
He told the committee that they were really only trying to do one thing with the bill. “Which is to say that failure to appear without more should not in municipal court be an independent crime subjecting you to time or punishment,” Weissman said.
A number of organizations, including the Office of the Alternate Defense Counsel, the Colorado Freedom Fund, League of Women Voters and Colorado Criminal Defense Bar appeared alongside the ACLU to testify in support of the bill.
Only one organization, the city of Aurora, testified in an opposition position to the bill. Aurora Presiding Municipal Judge Shawn Day told the committee that failure to appears are a huge issue for both state and municipal courts. He said that from Jan. 1, 2021 to the end of 2024, there were 21,538 failure to appears in Aurora on criminal cases alone.
“You can imagine the impact of those failure to appears on the citizens of Aurora,” Day said. “That’s for witnesses of crimes, victims of crimes, jurors that we bring in for jury duty. When somebody fails to appear it starts to add to the overcrowding of dockets, it starts to stack cases … and the impact that it’s having on the state courts, we’re experiencing those same impacts.”
He did note that what was done in Aurora was not what had happened in Pueblo, and that he in no way supported that practice.
Several organizations, including the Colorado Municipal League, city of Pueblo and Colorado Department of Safety testified in an amend position to the bill.
Jeremy Schupbach, legislative and policy advocate for the Colorado Municipal League, told the committee that passage of the bill, regardless of the amendment passed in the committee hearing, would take away another tool that municipalities have to combat repeated offenses and maintain accountability in their courts.
“Municipalities need the flexibility to address these issues effectively. While we recognize and appreciate the amendments that preserve judicial contempt power, the broader impact of this bill remains a serious concern,” Schupbach said. “If this bill passes, even as amended, it will be even more imperative for the legislature to support CML’s forthcoming bill to create that tool for local government to address that cycle of abuse.”
Carla Sikes, city attorney for the city of Pueblo, told the committee that few things can disrupt the efficient resolution of a case more than repeated failures to appear.
“Defense attorneys, interpreters, police officers and witnesses are required to appear multiple times without resolution,” Sikes said. “The court and city must pay the attorneys, interpreters and officers for overtime. Witnesses incur costs in the form of lost wages, lost time from work or child care costs. Witnesses’ memories fade, they relocate or take different jobs or often just decide it’s not worth it to continue to take time away from work or life, so they stop coming too.”
“Municipalities should be able to create laws to prohibit behavior that is willfully disobedient or disruptive to the community and court, including contempt,” Sikes added.”
Joel Malecka, legislative director for the Colorado Department of Public Safety told the committee that the responsibility of showing up to court is an integral part of the criminal justice system.
“We believe defendants, municipalities and all parties involved should follow the law and local governments need effective tools to achieve this,” Malecka said.
He noted that it was important to strike a balance between protecting due process rights, preserving judicial discretion and promoting accountability.
The amended bill passed its committee hearing by a 5-2 party line vote, with all Democrats on the committee in favor. At the time of publication, no further action following its second reading passage has been scheduled.