Three petitioners jailed illegally, released
By Juan Espinosa
Pueblo Municipal Court is not exempt from complying with state law, District Court Judge Michelle Chostner ruled on Friday (Nov. 1) in a case involving three people sentenced to long sentences for contempt of court.
Through a petition to the court filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, the petitioners said the city of Pueblo denied their basic constitutional rights.
Chostner ruled that the city violated state laws governing courts by failing to provide defendants with a charging document that notifies them of the date, time, location and the statutory basis for the charges against them.
Based on the judge’s ruling, lengthy sentences imposed on three petitioners were voided and they were released from completing they sentences. They are Dean Lopez, 55, Michael Tafoya, 47, and Lyrics Martinez,34. The three were sentenced to months in Pueblo County Jail for contempt of court.
“The three sentences are void and hereby nullified,” Chostner said at the end of the three-hour hearing.
More than 100 exhibits and several hours of recordings of court procedures were submitted by ACLU lawyers representing the petitioners and lawyers representing the city of Pueblo, but what mattered in the end was the lack of an adequate procedure.
The typical process to charge someone with contempt court was initiated by a “hand-written note,” the judge said. “I don’t find that the petitioners were adequately notified.”
Attorney Eric Ziporin representing the city earlier had argued that the warrants issued by the Municipal Court judges served as the charging document. Chostner ruled that the warrants, the hand-written notes and oral advisements together did not comply with state requirements.
Pueblo Municipal Court has been the subject of a series of stories published by the Denver Post, alleging that the court was using contempt of court charges to justify long jail terms for defendants charged with misdemeanor and non-violent charges. In Pueblo, the story has been largely ignored by the local newspaper and television media.
Of the three plaintiffs, Lopez had the longest sentence — 575 days. On his original charge of trespassing, he was sentenced to 90 days, the rest of the sentence was for contempt of court.
In 2017, Pueblo passed an ordinance — 9169, 1-6-12 — that made contempt of court a class 1 municipal offense punishable by up to 364 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. Under the ordinance, failure to appear to a court hearing is considered contempt of court.
One of the city’s defenses was that all of the petitioners had accepted plea agreements and pled guilty. In Lopez’s case, he faced 25 years in jail. “No wonder he took the plea,” said ACLU attorney Emma Mclean-Riggs.
“I agree contempt is a statutory crime in Pueblo but the same constitution applies in municipal court as any other court,” said. Mclean-Riggs.
