PUEBLO, Colo – On Friday, November 1, 2024, the ACLU of Colorado won three habeas petitions on behalf of three Colorado residents, securing their permanent release from their illegal imprisonment. A Pueblo District Court judge determined that the city of Pueblo violated basic constitutional requirements in convicting residents without providing a charging document and found that their convictions were void and their sentences unlawful.
Dean Lopez, Lyrcis Martinez, and Michael Tafoya were all unlawfully jailed for missing court dates in Pueblo. Pueblo convicted and jailed them under a unique “Contempt of Court” municipal ordinance that Pueblo created in 2017 which criminalized missing court. Ms. Martinez and Mr. Lopez served hundreds of days on the so-called contempt charges, far more than on their original sentence for minor offenses. In Mr. Tafoya’s case, he served time solely due to the unlawful contempt charge after missing court dates for low level offenses.
After their first hearings in October, a district court judge ordered the immediate release of Mr. Lopez, Ms. Martinez, and Mr. Tafoya pending the resolution of their cases. At their final hearings on November 1, 2024, the judge found that the city of Pueblo had failed to issue charging documents that would have allowed the petitioners to prepare a defense and protected them against future charges for the same offenses. Without those charging documents, the Municipal Court lacked jurisdiction over the cases and the resulting convictions were void. The judge ordered Mr. Lopez, Mr. Tafoya, and Ms. Martinez’s sentences immediately and permanently discharged.
Dean Lopez is a father and grandfather who was unlawfully detained on a 575-day sentence in the Pueblo County Jail. After serving 255 days of this sentence, Mr. Lopez was released. Mr. Lopez missed attending his father’s funeral and experiencing his granddaughter’s early childhood, because of the illegal sentence imposed by the city of Pueblo.
Lyrcis Martinez is an unhoused, transgender woman whose incarceration was a great risk to her safety; she had been held for months in an all-male unit of the Pueblo County Jail. 190 days of her 240-day sentence stemmed from illegal convictions resulting from missing court dates. Ms. Martinez, whose family has deep roots in Trinidad, Colorado, returns from jail to her mother, her brothers, and her community of friends.
Michael Tafoya is an unhoused man who recently lost his father while he was incarcerated on these illegal municipal charges. He was sentenced to 315 days in jail, all for illegal convictions resulting from missing court dates. He returns to his close-knit family, who have lived in Pueblo for generations.
“The city of Pueblo’s contempt scheme, which resulted in the unconstitutional incarceration of our clients, has caused immense suffering, primarily for people experiencing extreme poverty, unhoused people, people who are suffering from serious mentally illnesses, and Pueblo’s Latine and Indigenous communities,” said Emma Mclean-Riggs, ACLU of Colorado Senior Staff Attorney. “The Court’s ruling underscores that when cities choose to run criminal courts, they must comply with the requirements of the United States and Colorado Constitutions. We are glad to see our clients free and we expect the city of Pueblo to stop their unconstitutional contempt practice immediately, to comply with the Court’s decision.”
“The city’s initial defense was to claim that it could jail people for hundreds of days without providing basic constitutional protections because they were not being charged with a crime. The judge saw right through that charade. Now the city is claiming that the court’s voiding of the convictions is based on a technicality,” said Tim Macdonald, ACLU of Colorado Legal Director. “What the city calls a technicality, we call the fundamental tenets of our liberty, the Constitution. The Court found that Pueblo’s actions fell far short of their Constitutional obligations.”
The city of Pueblo had previously created the municipal crime of “Contempt of Court,” which can subject people to up to 364 days in jail, even when the alleged offense that brought the person to court originally carries no jail time, including offenses like loitering or standing in the median. In the vast majority of Colorado municipal and state courts, a missed court date results in a warrant, not a new criminal charge. In Pueblo, however, when a person missed a court date, non-jailable charges could balloon into sentences of months or even years.
The ACLU of Colorado will not tolerate the mistreatment of our most vulnerable residents in municipal court. We will continue to demand that municipalities uphold the civil rights of those who appear before them.
In addition to Macdonald and Mclean-Riggs, the legal team includes Annie Kurtz and Sara Neel, ACLU of Colorado Senior Staff Attorneys.
