2/24/16
Today, the Local Government Committee of the Colorado House of Representatives will consider House Bill 1191, a bill to ensure that all people, regardless of their economic circumstances or social status, have the right to rest and move about in public places without fear of being ticketed, harassed, or arrested.
The following is the prepared testimony of ACLU of Colorado Executive Nathan Woodliff-Stanley on HB 1191:

Thank you Madam Chair and members of the committee. My name is Nathan Woodliff-Stanley, Executive Director of the ACLU of Colorado, and I speak in favor of House Bill 1191.
It is clear to the ACLU that this bill is both timely and desperately needed. At least 76 communities in Colorado have passed more than 350 ordinances criminalizing nearly everything that a person who is homeless needs to do to survive, including asking for money, seeking food, or the harmless act of sitting, sleeping or resting pretty much anywhere, from a park bench to your own car. I would submit that it is essentially impossible to be homeless in much of Colorado without breaking the law, and I would challenge anyone who doubts that to try.
We are seeing a race to the bottom as municipalities compete to be the most hostile to people experiencing homelessness, hoping to drive them somewhere else, anywhere else, such as another nearby municipality, or hiding them in jails at a taxpayer cost of millions of dollars. Communities copy each other’s ordinances, and to the extent communities are successful in driving away some of their unhoused population, it affects neighboring communities that don’t pass these ordinances. The Right to Rest Act recognizes that this proliferation of anti-homeless ordinances is a matter of statewide concern, and that the only way to stop this race to the bottom is to pass statewide legislation limiting the criminalization of homelessness.
The ACLU has witnessed first-hand the statewide nature of this issue, as we have fought the targeting of unhoused persons and successfully curtailed unconstitutional panhandling ordinances in communities from Grand Junction to Colorado Springs to Fort Collins, with ripple effects on existing or proposed ordinances in Telluride, Greeley, Denver, Boulder, Durango, Steamboat Springs, and many other locations. Municipalities do watch each other, and there should be no doubt that this is a matter of statewide concern.
Nearly all of the objections to the Right to Rest Act in last year’s legislative session were related to the private right of action and a stated fear of frivolous lawsuits, which is not an issue in this year’s bill. All this bill does is to put the brakes on a headlong rush across Colorado to put criminal penalties on people who are homeless, which obviously does nothing to solve the underlying problems that cause homelessness in the first place.
It is hard enough to be homeless without facing a constant threat of arrest, often literally for doing nothing, being pushed out of public spaces that are supposed to be public, having your civil liberties violated and being unable to meet your most basic human needs, including simple rest. Virtually nowhere in Colorado is there adequate affordable housing or even enough shelter beds for those who need them. When the police say, “move along,” just where exactly are you supposed to go? Read the research, and you will see that we need this law.

2/12/16
To honor the memory of Bruce and Martha Sattler and their nearly 45 years of unwavering devotion to civil rights and civil liberties in Colorado, the ACLU of Colorado has established the Bruce and Martha Sattler Fellowship Fund.
Bruce and Martha Sattler both passed away in 2015. Together, they held almost every conceivable Board and staff leadership position at the ACLU of Colorado. To keep their spirit alive within the organization, the Bruce and Martha Sattler Fellowship Fund will set aside funds to assist in bringing young civil rights and civil liberties lawyers and advocates to work at the ACLU of Colorado as “Sattler Fellows.”
“Bruce and Martha Sattler devoted their lives to civil rights and civil liberties, and their impact on the ACLU of Colorado is beyond description,” said ACLU of Colorado Executive Director Nathan Woodliff-Stanley. “The Bruce and Martha Sattler Fellowship Fund will honor their legacy while providing opportunities to future generations of civil rights and civil liberties leaders in Colorado.”
The ACLU of Colorado will work with law schools, colleges, universities, and independent fellowship programs to attract and provide support for fellows and interns to work on important civil rights and civil liberties issues in Colorado. The fund will also support the work of summer and temporary legal interns at the organization.
“Apart from both of their unique talents, intelligence, wit, passion, warmth, and spirit, Bruce and Martha were incredibly wonderful souls,” said Woodliff-Stanley. “They are deeply missed at the ACLU of Colorado, but it gives us great pride to honor their memory through the Bruce and Martha Sattler Fellowship Fund.”
For more information or to contribute to the Bruce and Martha Sattler Fellowship Fund, please contact ACLU of Colorado Deputy Director Stephen Meswarb at [email protected].
To learn more about the Sattlers and their impact on civil rights and civil liberties in Colorado, read the ACLU of Colorado tributes to Bruce and Martha.

ACLU of Colorado Executive Director Nathan Woodliff-Stanley presented the following testimony to the Colorado Senate Judiciary Committee in opposition to SB 64, a bill that would have allowed death sentences to be given by non-unanimous juries.  The bill was defeated.
Thank you, Madam Chair.  My name is Nathan Woodliff-Stanley, Executive Director of the ACLU of Colorado, and I testify in opposition to Senate Bill 64.

There are only three states that currently allow non-unanimous juries in death penalty sentencing—Florida, Alabama and Delaware.  Two of these states are considering legislation to require unanimous juries, and one is moving closer to ending the death penalty entirely.  There is no reason for Colorado to be the only state moving in the other direction, possibly unconstitutionally, to allow non-unanimous juries in death penalty cases.  Death is an irreversible punishment that should never be allowed under weaker standards than we require for something like shoplifting.  Juries are already structurally biased toward death sentences because jurors have to be death-qualified, willing to give the death penalty, to even serve on a death penalty jury.  If juries in Colorado have not been imposing the death penalty as often, perhaps that should be seen as a sign that we are moving away from a bad and broken system, not as a reason to make executions easier.

By nearly all accounts, the death penalty is useless as a deterrent, and in fact murder rates are higher in states using the death penalty than in those that do not.  Even with unanimous juries, many innocent people across this nation have been given death sentences only to be exonerated many years later.  The last thing we should be doing is increasing the likelihood of fatal mistakes here in Colorado.

Even apart from bigger-picture issues with the death penalty, there are many problems with non-unanimous juries.  A non-unanimous sentence would be seen as less valid and more open to challenge.  A non-unanimous jury is more likely to give death after a mistaken conviction, and in fact, Florida, with non-unanimous juries, has the highest rate of exonerations after mistaken death sentences in the country.  We should not adopt legislation that will make it more likely to execute someone who is innocent, someone who is mentally ill, or someone who is marginalized or poor or who simply did not have good counsel.  Please vote against Senate Bill 64.