A Pueblo District Court judge on Friday ordered the immediate release of two individuals who have spent months in the city’s jail on municipal contempt of court charges.
Judge Michelle Chostner freed Lyrcis Martinez, 34, and Michael Tafoya, 47, days after the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado filed petitions arguing their Pueblo Municipal Court sentences violated both the U.S. and Colorado constitutions.
The judge’s order comes one week after she freed a 55-year-old Pueblo man also serving time on municipal contempt of court charges. Chostner said she will rule during a Nov. 1 hearing on the legality of the three sentences — rulings that could impact jail terms being served by other Pueblo inmates.
Chostner said Friday that she recognized that this is an “important and novel issue.”
The ACLU, in all three cases, argued the sentences for these individuals were illegal because they never received charging documents for those contempt counts. Under both the U.S. and Colorado constitutions, defendants are entitled to charging documents that explain the basis for the criminal charge filed against them, so that they can prepare a defense to the allegations and to protect against prosecution for the same offense in the future.
The civil rights organization took legal action three months after a Denver Post investigation found Pueblo Municipal Court judges were using contempt of court charges to inflate jail sentences for low-level, nonviolent crimes. The Post found the city would punish defendants for failing to appear for their court hearings, levying, at times, dozens of contempt charges that led to increasingly long jail sentences.
In other municipal courts in Colorado, judges typically issue arrest warrants for those who miss court appearances; they’re then jailed until their next court appearance to make sure they attend. Those failure to appear charges are remedial, not punitive, and usually do not carry their own jail sentences.
Tafoya has been in custody since June, serving a 315-day sentence on 17 municipal contempt convictions. All of the contempt charges came from missing court hearings, the ACLU alleged, and Tafoya never received charging documents for any of the nearly two dozen counts.
Martinez received a 240-day jail sentence in July stemming from 21 municipal contempt convictions. The charges also came solely from missed court dates.
“The 240-day sentence that Ms. Martinez is currently serving, at this stage entirely for missed court dates, stemming from convictions the court had no jurisdiction to impose, cannot stand,” the ACLU wrote in its Oct. 8 petition.
Pueblo’s attorneys, in court filings, argued the Colorado Constitution allows local governments the power of “home rule” — meaning they can address matters of local concern to protect the safety and welfare of its citizens.
If the court were to make a finding that the city’s contempt powers were used illegally, “it could have a significant impact on the legitimacy of other sentences issued by the municipal court,” the attorneys wrote.
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