Colorado Supreme Court rules against Aurora’s ‘tough-on-crime’ penalties

AURORA | A Colorado Supreme Court ruling this week put a halt to much of Aurora’s recent tough-on-crime legislation.

The state’s high court ruled Monday that municipal jail penalties for misdemeanor offenses must not surpass state jail sentences, affecting multiple laws recently enacted in Aurora. 

“In sum, home-rule municipalities may not authorize harsher sentences than state law allows for an identical offense,” justices wrote in two Supreme Court cases: People v. Camp in Westminster and People v. Simons in Aurora. 

In the Camp case, the defendant was charged with theft of less than $300, with a potential maximum penalty of up to 364 days in jail, fines as high as $2,650, or both. In the Simons case, the defendant was charged with motor vehicle trespass and later trespass, each with a maximum penalty of 364 days, a $2,650 fine or both.

The state law states that theft under $300 is a petty offense with a maximum punishment of ten days in jail, a $300 fine, or both. State law also has theft between $300 and $1,000 is a class 2 misdemeanor with a maximum punishment of 120 days’ imprisonment, a $750 fine, or both. State law also classifies second-degree criminal trespass as a class 2 misdemeanor.

In both cases, the filings were made before the defendants were sentenced. 

“Although Camp and Simons may be prosecuted in municipal court for their respective ordinance violations, they may not be subjected to penalties that exceed the state caps for the corresponding state offenses,” The ruling stated. “We make the orders in the cases before us absolute and remand each case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

The unanimous decision was written by Chief Justice Monica Márquez. 

The court did not argue in the ruling for equal protection; it argued preemptive grounds instead, going back to a sweeping police reform bill after the George Floyd protests in 2021, which reduced state penalties to levels below many municipal penalties.

The ruling will require Aurora to reduce its harsher mandatory jail sentences, and any sentence of more than 10 days will have those penalties dismissed and reduced to 10 days or less, according to city legal officials. 

Aurora made many of these changes in 2022 by creating mandatory minimums for shoplifting at a threshold of $300, then reduced the threshold for mandatory jail to $100 in 2024. At the same time, the city added penalties of 90 days for second offenses and 180 days for third offenses. Aurora’s general penalty for all misdemeanor offenses was set at a maximum of 364 days by state law and changed at the state level in 2021, but never enforced at the municipal level. 

“I’m disappointed in the decision because I feel that our sentencing guidelines have been helpful in deterring crime,” Mayor Mike Coffman said in a statement. “However, staff is analyzing the actual sentences that have been handed down by our municipal courts to see to what extent, if any, we have actually gone beyond the state’s criminal code sentencing limits.”

This change would include other laws recently enacted in Aurora, such as mandatory minimums of 90 days for second-time misdemeanor offenses and 180 days for third-time misdemeanor offenses. 

The Aurora Municipal Court has not yet decided what will happen to the nearly 300 cases that were put on hold while awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision.

All of those cases should be dismissed, said Chief Public Defender Elizabeth Cadiz. 

Aurora City Attorney Pete Schulte said his office will need to make changes immediately, since local courts, in his opinion, no longer have control of creating and enforcing laws. He said he will take direction from the city council on what to do. 

“The municipal courts (may not) continue to prosecute criminal offenses that otherwise would go to the state because we’re not getting reimbursed for the municipal tax dollars we’re spending,” Schulte said. “We’ve become an extension of the state criminal justice system.”

The Executive Director from the Colorado Municipal Leagues, Kevin Bommer, agreed.

“The court’s action could not come at a worse time for the state, which is already dealing with serious budget shortfalls,” Bommer said. “The Joint Budget Committee should be prepared to budget for increasing caseloads in state courts as municipalities unburden themselves from handling these offenses in municipal courts. Why even bother funding a mere extension of the state system?” 

During the previous legislative session, both the state house and the senate approved a bill, HB1147, that would have aligned municipal misdemeanor penalties with state penalties. The bill also proposed greater transparency and the right to counsel in municipal courts.

After the law passed the state house and senate, Gov. Jared Polis vetoed it, citing concerns about public safety, the need to reduce crime rates, and municipalities’ rights to “home rule.” 

“The bill also significantly restricts a municipality’s ability to react to local crime trends in ways that a local government deems most appropriate to improve public safety in their community,” Polis said in his veto message. “It is not in the interest of increasing public safety to constrain a municipality’s ability to set appropriate sentences for crimes within their borders.”

Polis also cited Denver’s use of harsher penalties for assault cases, which he deemed a necessary penalty for the city to manage the particular crime. 

“In his veto letter, Gov. Polis indicated that it would be important for the Supreme Court to settle this case before changing state law,” Shelby Weiman, the governor’s spokesperson, said in a statement. “Now that they have, there is clarity for municipalities and the state around sentencing. While the governor disagrees with this decision, he respects the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision.”

Aurora Democratic state Sen. Mike Weissman said he was pleased that the Supreme Court unanimously confirmed what HB1147 contended all along.

“Which is that local control cannot be stretched so far as to allow disparate punishments for exactly the same offenses on different sides of the same street in Colorado, Weissman said. “And although the Supreme Court settled the matter by evaluating local control doctrine and did not consider the question of equal protection, I have personally long thought municipal punishments that exceed state law violate protection principles as well.”

In recent years, up until April 2024, Aurora implemented multiple “tough on crime” responses to various misdemeanor offenses, including shoplifting over $100, with higher minimums for repeat offenders, as well as walking out on a dinner tab, or dine-and-dashing of more than $15. 

First-time shoplifters and people who walk out on restaurant tabs will still potentially face three days of mandatory jail time in Aurora.

But opponents of the high court opinion say it erodes state constitutional guarantees of local control for home-rule cities and counties.

“Colorado Municipal League is disappointed in the outcome and concerned about the erosion of constitutional protections for communities to ensure safety and defer criminal activity,” Bommer said. “This court inappropriately divined legislative intent when the General Assembly never so much as hinted in 2021 that their goal was to affect municipal courts – and then Gov. Polis correctly vetoed a bill last year that would have tried to wind back the clock and express such intent.” 

Weissman said two distinct arguments are happening.

“What’s not being debated here is that people who break the law should be punished in a proportional way,” Weissman said. “What’s being debated is whether it should be allowable in Colorado in 2025 for one person to be punished with a sentence more than 30 times longer than another person for the same offense. The Supreme Court correctly said the answer to that is ‘no.’”