AURORA | Aurora City Council conservative Dustin Zvonek confirmed April 8 that he would support halting the prosecution of domestic violence cases in Aurora’s city court to evade a state bill blocking cities that try such cases from signing flat-fee contracts for public defense.
His statements followed a March 29 committee meeting where another Aurora City Council conservative, Danielle Jurinsky, said she and Zvonek will lead the charge to remove those cases from municipal court if the bill passes.
At the time, Jurinsky framed the proposed overhaul of domestic violence prosecutions as necessary to preserve an ongoing effort to eliminate Aurora’s in-house public defender office and replace the office’s attorneys with lawyers operating under a contract.
Zvonek said Monday that he wants to ensure the council has the ability to pursue privatization in the future but told his council colleagues that getting out from under the state bill was about protecting Aurora’s autonomy as a home-rule city.
“(It) is the latest attempt to subvert local control,” he said of the bill, characterizing the city’s decision to keep domestic violence cases out of Arapahoe and Adams county courts as “subsidizing” those jurisdictions.
“One of the options that we have in Aurora in order to avoid being put under the thumb of the legislature is to review whether or not we want to continue to subsidize Arapahoe and Adams.”
Since the 1980s, Aurora’s Municipal Court has tried misdemeanor domestic violence cases, which cities in Colorado typically rely on counties to handle. City officials have in the past argued that the practice empowers Aurora to make sure victims obtain justice and spares victims and witnesses from having to travel to courthouses in Brighton and Centennial.
It is unclear whether Adams and Arapahoe counties would be able to absorb the influx of cases that would otherwise be prosecuted locally by Aurora.
Arapahoe County spokesman Anders Nelson wrote in an email that a 2023 analysis of Aurora’s caseload suggests Jurinsky and Zvonek’s proposal could add upward of 1,588 domestic violence cases to the 18th Judicial District’s docket. That’s about three times the number of domestic violence cases heard annually by the court.
Nelson also said hiring the employees needed to handle those cases in the prosecutor’s office as well as in the court itself could cost the county $2.45 million on an ongoing, annual basis. Additionally, the county would have to find the court space to accommodate the new cases.
“Domestic violence cases are the most time and resource intensive on the county court docket,” Nelson said. “Arapahoe County is already facing an immediate budget shortfall. Without new funding by 2025, it will not be possible to sustain essential services at the level our residents deserve and have come to expect. County staff has shared this information with their city counterparts.”
Chris Hopper — a spokesman for the 17th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, which serves Adams and Broomfield counties — wrote in an email that the office was aware of the discussion taking place among council members and is still analyzing what the impact could be.
“Preliminarily, however, it is clear that such a change would drastically increase our caseload and would require immediate additional resources in order to handle these additional cases,” Hopper wrote. “The District Attorney’s Office will continue to monitor this issue as the City of Aurora considers this change.”
Zvonek told the council he would sponsor a resolution directing City Manager Jason Batchelor to evaluate the cost to Aurora of prosecuting its domestic violence caseload. Zvonek also said he would bring an ordinance to an upcoming meeting of the council’s public safety policy committee that would end those prosecutions.
The latest debate over Aurora’s handling of domestic violence cases comes after the council’s conservative majority, led by Zvonek, voted in October to invite private law firms to bid on replacing the city’s in-house office.
Before and after the vote, Zvonek said he would only support privatizing the office if a bidder promised to provide the same level of service for significantly less money.
“I have said repeatedly that if it came back and showed that isn’t the case, then we wouldn’t move forward with anything,” he said Nov. 27. “I don’t know what people are so afraid of with doing this (request for proposals). If they’re so confident that it’s going to show that there is no savings, then let’s just hurry up and get it done, so we can move on with this.”
This framing of the bidding process — that it was the mechanism by which the council would determine whether privatization could save money and was thus worth pursuing further — was repeatedly invoked to limit criticism of flat-fee privatization by council progressives and the public during meetings while the process was pending.
Opponents accused Zvonek of seeking revenge against the office for former chief public defender Doug Wilson’s outspoken skepticism of mandatory minimum sentencing proposals that were ultimately passed by the conservative majority. Zvonek insisted the bidding process was not an act of retaliation.
The city’s invitation expired last month with no bids received and no further proof that the city could contract with a law firm to do the work of the in-house office for less. Zvonek said at the time that he viewed the outcome as the end of the council’s exploration of whether the city could save money by privatizing the office.
After Monday’s meeting, Zvonek said he didn’t see a contradiction between his previous comments and preemptively overhauling how domestic violence cases are prosecuted to allow the council to move toward a private, flat-fee model.
“The bill has to do with not allowing cities to potentially pursue that, whether we do it or not, which, we tried to, and it didn’t work out,” he said. “That isn’t to say that a future council might not want to do it.”
When Zvonek was asked about Jurinsky saying during the March committee meeting that the council is still pursuing hiring private attorneys to handle the work of public defense despite the outcome of the bidding process, Jurinsky, who was standing nearby, disputed she had said this.
Among other things, Jurinsky said March 29 that “if we continue prosecuting domestic violence cases, we are locked into our current city public defender’s office” and that “we would not be able to bring in outside counsel, which we’re not going to back off from.”
She described the bill as “an attempt to stop us from trying another (request for proposals) or continuing our efforts to get rid of our in-house public defender’s office.”
Zvonek also did not rule out Aurora’s current council continuing to pursue privatization.
“There could be opportunities in the future for councils to do that. Whether or not we do it is to be determined,” he said. “The issue with this bill in particular is whether or not we should continue to allow the state to trample on local control.”
Once any service becomes privatized, the controlling factor becomes profit. I don’t think this is in the best interest of the people they are purporting to serve.
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