Judge vacates convictions, sentences in 3 Pueblo contempt cases

A district judge in Pueblo on Friday expunged the city’s contempt of court convictions and sentences for three people, finding that city judges had illegally jailed the defendants.

Pueblo District Court Judge Michelle Chostner ruled that the municipal court’s use of the slur violated the constitutional rights of the three defendants because the city never filed charging documents outlining the allegations against them.

“The issue is what happened after the person was arrested,” Chostner said Friday. “It was at this point that the procedural process began to falter.”

The decision came three months later Denver Post investigation It found that Pueblo municipal judges routinely use contempt of court charges to inflate prison sentences for defendants facing low-level charges that require little or no prison time.

The city’s judges have used contempt of court to jail people for months in cases that in other courts in Colorado were punishable only by a fine or a day or two in jail, The Post reported.

Ann Roan, an attorney not involved in the cases, said Friday’s ruling opens the door for others still in jail on civil contempt charges to appeal their convictions and sentences. He suggested that the Pueblo city attorney should proactively vacate these convictions.

“I think a principled city attorney would take action to lift these fines and release these people,” he said. “I don’t see any other reasonable course of action for a prosecutor.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado filed legal action in October. We are taking action for his immediate release. One of the three defendants – and the fourth this week – on the grounds that their contempt of court convictions were invalid because they were not provided with charging papers.

Defendants have a constitutional right to request documents to defend themselves in criminal cases. This summer, The Post found no contempt citations or independent documentation of contempt charges in the Pueblo Municipal Court’s more than 1,000-page docket on 229 contempt charges against 37 different defendants.

Pueblo attorney Eric Ziporin argued Friday that the charging documents were not necessary because the contempt of court charges are not criminal charges.

In most courts across the state, contempt is not a crime per se, but rather a special power that allows judges to enforce court orders and etiquette. But in Pueblo, contempt of court is not just a judicial power, it is codified as its own crime in the city’s municipal code, punishable by up to 364 days in prison.

Ziporin argued Friday that judges in the city used their judicial contempt powers to jail defendants rather than charging contempt as a municipal crime under city law. This means the city does not have to provide charging documents to the defendants, he said.

“Insulting is not automatically a crime because there is a penalty attached to it,” he said. “That’s just lazy analysis.”

Chostner rejected that argument, one of several arguments Ziporin relied on to defend the municipal court’s practice. He also argued that the defendants went through all legal processes and that municipal judges followed correct procedures.

“I wonder how, in some cases, a misdemeanor that is used to impose consecutive prison sentences beyond what you could get in a district court case for a low-level offense could not be a crime.” Chostner told Ziporin that sentence lengths were not a problem.

In his ruling Friday, Chostner said the municipal court’s disrespect for court practices also raises concerns about the separation of powers in the city court.

“The same judge initiated the prosecution, oversaw the trial, and if any plaintiff had pleaded not guilty and requested a hearing, he would have been one of the only witnesses, if not the only one,” he said.

Emma Mclean-Riggs, an attorney for the ACLU of Colorado, said in a statement Friday that Chostner’s decision brings justice to her clients.

“Their freedom was stolen from them for months,” he said. “It was really meaningful for them and for us that they were finally vindicated and the injustice that had happened to them was acknowledged in open court.”

He added that other people imprisoned solely for contempt of court by the Pueblo municipality would be required to pursue similar action on an individual basis.

“Now that the judge has reached this finding, it is clear that these convictions are invalid and these people must be released immediately,” he said.