Colorado Supreme Court won’t order decrease in jail populations

The Colorado Supreme Court denied petitions from defense attorneys asking for uniform, statewide rules about reducing the state’s jail populations and preventing the spread of coronavirus in courts.

The state’s highest court denied the petitions Friday, the same day they were filed by the Colorado Office of the Public Defender, the criminal defense attorney bar and the Office of Alternate Defense Counsel.

The justices did not give a reason for the denial, but a letter from Chief Justice Nathan Coats sent earlier last week to the employees of the state’s judicial branch shows that the state’s top judge is hesitant to impose stricter statewide mandates. Coats issued an order March 16 suspending many jury trials and other court hearings, but the order does not address jail populations.

“While it would undoubtedly be easier for me to administer the judiciary, especially in times of crisis like these, by simply dictating uniform rules to govern all of the courts of the state, in many instances that kind of approach would not only be impractical but in fact would lead to terrible inequities and unfair outcomes,” Coats wrote in the April 1 letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Denver Post.

The defense attorneys’ petitions asked the Supreme Court to instruct local jurisdictions to lower their jail population by changing arrest practices and how local courts handle cases, including reducing some sentence lengths. The population of the state’s largest jails has declined by more than third in response to the threat of the virus.

Coats applauded

the widespread depopulation of jails and acknowledged in his letter that jails were a “high-risk environment for spreading the virus.”

“There remains a clear need to detain some criminal defendants in the interests of public safety, and therefore jail populations cannot be reduced indiscriminately,” Coats wrote. “However, it is equally clear that committing someone to confinement during a health crisis for any reason other than public safety must give way to the risk of endangering public health.”

While some prosecutors have asked for stricter statewide guidelines, others applauded the justices’ decision to let local jurisdictions decide how to deal with COVID-19. Eighteenth Judicial District Attorney George Brauchler said he agrees with the importance of reducing jail populations and with some of the suggestions in the defense attorneys’ petitions, but that each county should decide on its own how to proceed.

“If there are decisions to be made, they should be made on a case-by-case basis,” he said.