Failure to pay $50 fee should not keep defendants in jail, Denver court says

A $50 required bail assessment fee in Denver will not be used to keep people in jail who post bail but don’t have money for the fee, Denver County Court ordered Friday.

The executive court order is a response to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court by the ACLU of Colorado on behalf of 25yearold Mickey Howard, who spent five days in jail, after posting $10 bail, because he couldn’t pay the $50 fee.

“The Court finds that this required … fee assessment shall not cause any defendant to remain in custody due to an inability to pay,” the court said in a news release. “This fee will be assessed and later collected with other fines and costs.”

Howard spent an extra five days in jail at a cost of $70 a day for a total of about $350, according to the lawsuit.

When booked into jail on charges of domestic violence and public intoxication, Howard had $64, according to the lawsuit and Denver County Court records.

That was enough to pay the $10 bail and his $30 booking fee for fingerprint ing and taking a mug shot. But that left him $26 short for paying his $50 bail fee, the lawsuit says.

Howard’s plight demonstrates that the system was keeping people in jail based on poverty, an inability to pay a fee, said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the Colorado ACLU. Furthermore, Howard, and others like him — pretrial defendants — should be seen as innocent in the eyes of the law, and assessing the fee up front is a violation of due process.

Friday’s announcement, however, is a step in the right direction, Silverstein said.