When I began work as Executive Director of the ACLU of Colorado in 2012, my sister-in-law gave me a copy of a bright red bound pamphlet titled, “The True Patriot,” by Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer, both sons of immigrants, both proud to be American.  I have kept it on my desk ever since as a reminder of my charge.
It is an honor to work here, since few organizations exemplify true patriotism more fully than the American Civil Liberties Union, defending the Constitution of the United States for nearly a hundred years.  The ACLU has fought in the courts to ensure that the promises of the Bill of Rights are made real, not just words on a piece of paper, and real for all people in this land, not just for some.  The essential values of the Constitution have shone like jewels from the beginning, while the great struggle of our nation has been to overcome the evils of slavery, discrimination, the exclusion of women from the political franchise, and other limitations upon who could enjoy the rights of the Constitution fully.
The ACLU was founded in 1920, soon after the NAACP and the Anti-Defamation League, the same year women won the right to vote.  Until then, the Supreme Court had never ruled for freedom of speech—it took a case from the ACLU to make those words real.  Since then, the ACLU has argued more cases before the Supreme Court than any other private organization.  The result is Miranda rights, the right to an attorney, students’ rights of expression, Loving v. Virginia and LGBTQ marriage equality, rights of privacy, reproductive rights, voting rights, and countless other victories extending the promises of the Bill of Rights to more people, never fewer.
Now, in a way I could not have anticipated four years ago, we find ourselves at the ACLU in the center of a profound struggle to defend our nation’s most essential principles, from due process to equal protection to rights of protest, separation of Church and State, and other basic First Amendment rights.  In the face of threats of renewed torture and intrusive government surveillance, racially-biased policing and curtailed voting rights, attacks on the press and the judiciary, disrespect for people facing disability or economic distress, and dismantling of the rights of women, religious minorities, immigrants and refugees—ultimately a threat to everyone’s rights—I am called to make the stand of a true patriot for the values at the core of the Constitution.
Fortunately, I am not alone.  The ACLU itself has a presence on the ground in every state, as well as a powerful national organization.  We work with dozens of partner organizations and thousands of people who just want to keep the doors of our democracy open.  At the Women’s March on January 21, millions of people poured into the streets to speak out against potential tyranny.  (Showing up matters, especially when insecure leaders are obsessed with crowd sizes.)  Then, when immigrants and Muslim refugees came under attack, protests sprung up at airports across our nation.  In Denver alone, about three hundred people turned out for a protest organized in a matter of hours—Muslims, Christians, Jews, and people of many other religious perspectives; representatives of organizations from Planned Parenthood and COLOR to Common Cause and Black Lives Matter; lawyers and legislators and little children—all gathering for peaceful protest on behalf of suddenly-banned immigrants and refugees.
Led in amazing fashion by young Syrian-American Amal Kassir, I have never seen a more patriotic gathering than that protest at the airport Saturday night.  She read the words of the First Amendment and other passages in the Constitution.  We recited the Pledge of Allegiance together as a crowd.  We sang, “This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land” with passion and love.  Flags were in abundance along with expressions of solidarity with immigrant families, desperate refugees, legal residents suddenly being detained, and all those who have ever dreamed the American dream or cried at the words displayed on the Statue of Liberty.  Young and old chanted together for our nation at its best, not our nation at its worst.  The gathering was powerful and it remained peaceful, pausing for those who prayed, and police arrested no one.
When an initial court victory by the ACLU and other organizations was announced that evening, the crowds cheered.  A continued outpouring of support for the ACLU is inspiring hope and equipping us to stand even taller in defense of the constitutional rights of every person in this land.  Along with our partners—for we all need each other more than ever—we will defend this democracy with all our might.
Who, after all, is the true patriot?  What better way to honor the sacrifice of the immigrants to this already-populated land who fought for freedom from the decrees of a king or the soldiers who fought for abolition of slavery in the Civil War than to fight now for immigrants and indigenous peoples alike, for the descendants of slaves, and for anyone detained by decree or deprived of freedom today?  Seriously, does it honor the generation that fought fascism in World War II to use slogans with a fascist history like “America First”?  Is jingoistic and narrowly exclusive nationalism really patriotism at all, or is true patriotism found in the vigorous defense of our core Constitutional values and the welcoming embrace of all who are or aspire to be Americans?
We must not deny the present danger.  It is time to rise to the occasion.  To those who are stepping forward today for the ACLU and other defenders of liberty and justice for all, I say thank you for being a true American and a true patriot.

DENVER – In a letter sent this morning, the ACLU of Colorado demanded that the Denver Parks Department stop enforcement of an unconstitutional and ineffective temporary directive authorizing police to banish people from city parks, without a hearing, conviction, or other due process, based on mere suspicion of illegal drug activity.

“Denver’s program of expelling persons from public parks is an end run around constitutional protections,” said ACLU of Colorado Legal Director Mark Silverstein. “Now that we have seen the program in operation, we also know that it has failed to target the dangerous and threatening behaviors that City officials cited to justify this drastic measure.”

The six-month program was initiated by the Parks Department without an ordinance or vote of the City Council on September 1, 2016. Although the temporary directive authorizing the program is set to expire at the end of February, the Parks Director stated it might then be adopted as a permanent rule.

The program gives police officers unilateral authority to ban persons suspected of “illegal drug activity” from city parks.  According to the directive, a person “need not be charged, tried or convicted of any crime, infraction, or administrative citation” for a suspension notice to be issued or effective. A ban lasts for 90 days and re-entry is punishable by up to a year in jail.

Denver officials justified the banishment program as necessary to combat what they characterized as a “huge epidemic of heroin use” and associated violent behavior in the parks, but an ACLU review of every suspension notice issued pursuant to the Directive shows that expulsions have primarily targeted persons experiencing homelessness who are suspected of simple consumption or possession of marijuana.

In fact, the majority of the 39 suspension notices have been for marijuana-related activities, while only 6 have been for suspected heroin use.  This despite a pledge in writing from the Denver City Attorney’s office to the ACLU that the “illegal drug activity” targeted by the program would not include marijuana.

The ACLU letter asserts that neither the Denver Charter nor Denver ordinances grant the Parks Department the legal authority to expel specific persons from public parks.  Even if the Department has such authority, the letter argues, banishment from public parks violates fundamental constitutional rights.  The ACLU also argues that expelling persons based on a police officer’s suspicion, without a hearing, violates due process.

Finally, the ACLU argues that the program “doesn’t come close to meeting the announced goal of expelling injection drug users or persons responsible for assaults and threatening behavior” and that “enforcement of the directive is consistent with a long line of efforts by the City to use aggressive policing to drive people experiencing homelessness – those who have nowhere else to go – out of public spaces in Denver.”

“These efforts are not only cruel, they are also ineffective.  For houseless park patrons, including those with drug addiction, banishment does absolutely nothing to address the underlying problem of homelessness or addiction.  Instead, banishment from a single City park simply shuffles people experiencing homelessness, and any drug use, from one public space to another.  Thus, enforcement of the Directive has trampled the fundamental rights of park goers to occupy public spaces without meaningfully advancing the City’s interest in increasing the safety and usability of its parks,” wrote Silverstein and ACLU of Colorado Staff Attorney Rebecca Wallace.

The ACLU is calling on Denver to immediately suspend enforcement of the directive, revoke any suspension notices currently in effect, and abandon any efforts to make the banishment program permanent in February.

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DENVER – The City of Aurora has agreed to cancel hundreds of dollars of debt and reimburse nearly $800 in overpayments that James Fisher made to the Aurora Municipal Court while he attempted to resolve rapidly-ballooning fees that he could not afford to pay, according to a settlement announced today by the ACLU of Colorado.

"James Fisher was trapped in a cycle of debt that is all too familiar to thousands of low-income Coloradans ticketed for minor ordinance violations.  He made payment after payment to the court, but his debt continued to grow.  Although Mr. Fisher eventually paid more than double his original fines, the Aurora Municipal Court kept coming back for more, issuing warrants when he missed a payment,” said ACLU of Colorado Legal Director Mark Silverstein. “With this settlement, Mr. Fisher can finally put this nightmare behind him and move on with his life.”

In 2012, Fisher was sentenced to pay $678 in fines for three municipal ordinance violations – two open container tickets issued on the same night and a citation for driving without proof of insurance.

Over the next four years, while Fisher struggled with homelessness and unsteady work as a day laborer, he nonetheless made 19 separate payments to the Court totaling $1498 – more than twice his original fines. Yet, he still owed the court $860. The Court imposed payment schedules that Fisher could not meet, made each of his due dates a court appearance, and then issued “failure to appear” warrants when he could not make a payment.  Municipal courts across Colorado often used these “failure to appear” warrants to coerce payment after the state legislature in 2014 outlawed “failure to pay” warrants in ACLU-backed legislation aimed at curbing debtors’ prisons.

In total, 13 arrest warrants were issued for Mr. Fisher when he was unable to make steady payments.  Each new warrant tacked at least $100 in additional fees onto Fisher’s debt.  On several occasions, the court assessed fees simultaneously across Fisher’s three cases following a single missed payment.  For example, in one instance, Fisher missed a $70 payment that was scheduled in a single case.  Aurora assessed a $25 “Failure to Appear Fee” and a $75 “Warrant Fee” in each of his three active cases, totaling $300 for a single missed payment date.

In 2016, Fisher joined the ACLU of Colorado in testifying before the state legislature in support of a new law to stop Colorado municipal courts from using “failure to appear” warrants to collect payment from indigent defendants who cannot afford to pay.  House Bill 16-1311 passed with strong bipartisan majorities and was signed into law by Governor Hickenlooper last June.

Subsequently, the City of Aurora voluntarily vacated 2,859 warrants that had been issued for non-payment of outstanding debts.  In Fisher’s case, after a negotiation with the ACLU of Colorado, the City further agreed to cancel all of his remaining debt and to reimburse $790 in payments that he had made in excess of his original fines.

“On one hand, I feel like a weight has been lifted off of me. I also feel a sense of pride that I hung in there and fought a good fight,” said Fisher. “I hope this settlement sends a message to the courts and to the community that the ACLU will stand up for people, and that the fight for economic and social justice isn’t over - it’s just getting started.”

“We are thrilled that Mr. Fisher is finally free of the debt cycle that the Aurora Municipal Court had trapped him in for four years,” said ACLU of Colorado Staff Attorney Rebecca Wallace. “But there are still thousands of impoverished Coloradoans who need relief from excessive court debt.  Municipal courts across the state, including Aurora, should be revising their debt collection practices to prevent the continuation of the current two-tiered system of justice – one in which wealthy defendants who commit minor violations quickly pay their fines and move on with their lives, while poor defendants remain indebted and tied to the criminal justice system for years, often paying the court significantly more money than their wealthier counterparts to resolve their case."

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