A Colorado court sends poor people to jail without access to lawyers, advocates say. It doesn't record the proceedings

Jennifer Jones was sitting in Montrose Municipal Court in early January when she noticed something that didn’t seem right.

She witnessed a man in his 60s with multiple trespassing and camping charges receive a 10-day jail sentence. This individual, though, did not have an attorney — a right afforded under the Constitution to anyone facing jail time.

If Jones, a volunteer court-watcher, hadn’t been observing proceedings that day, nobody outside of the people involved with the case would have known what happened.

That’s because Montrose Municipal Court is not a “court of record” — meaning it keeps no written, audio or visual recording of court proceedings. The public, civil rights organizations and members of the media cannot watch court hearings virtually, or access video after the fact, and cannot request any transcripts or audio of the day’s docket.

It’s not clear how many municipal courts in Colorado are not courts of record. But court watchers say they believe Montrose to be the only court in the state that sentences people to jail and isn’t a court of record.

It’s examples like these that spurred Colorado lawmakers this month to introduce a bill that would bar municipal courts that are not courts of record from sending people to jail. House Bill 26-1134, titled “Fairness and Transparency in Municipal Court,” also clarifies that municipal court defendants have a right to counsel and that in-custody proceedings must be livestreamed for the public to view.

The legislation marks a second stab at codifying protections for municipal defendants after Gov. Jared Polis vetoed a similar bill last year. The governor, though, took issue with the part of the bill that sought to address sentencing disparities between municipal and state courts. A Colorado Supreme Court ruling settled that issue in December, leading bill sponsors this year to focus on the transparency elements from last year’s legislation.

“Justice dies in the dark,” said Rebecca Wallace, policy director for the Colorado Freedom Fund, an organization that helps people pay bail. “Montrose Municipal Court needs a light on it — this bill provides some of that light.”

If municipal courts have the same power to put people in jail as state courts, they must provide the same due process protections, said Rep. Javier Mabrey, a Denver Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors.

Access to counsel is already a right for municipal defendants facing jail time — but that doesn’t mean it always happens.

In October 2024, The Denver Post reported that poor and unhoused individuals in custody in Grand Junction Municipal Court were frequently appearing in court without attorneys. This came to light because the Colorado Freedom Fund obtained hours of recordings of court proceedings. If Grand Junction hadn’t been a court of record, that would not have been possible.

Alida Soileau, a defense attorney who practices in Montrose, said she’s never heard the municipal court say that someone’s case qualifies for court-appointed counsel. She said she’s witnessed one occasion in which a defendant facing jail did not have an attorney.

“It’s the wild west,” she said in an interview.

Without recordings or transcripts, Wallace said it’s impossible for watchdog organizations like hers — or members of the media — to confirm such accounts and investigate further.

Chris Dowsey, Montrose’s city attorney, said the municipal court directs people to a written advisement on the right to an attorney when a case involves a possible jail sentence, and follows that up with an oral advisement.

“For each case, the judge confirms that the defendant has received one of those advisements of rights,” he said in a statement. “If they have not received such an advisement, the judge would give another oral advisement to that individual.”

Montrose city officials say they’re working on becoming a court of record.

Municipal Judge Thomas LeClaire told the City Council during a January meeting that he recommended the court make the change. Councilmembers supported the idea, saying the pending state legislation made it a good time to get ahead of the curve. Officials estimated it could happen as soon as this spring.

Montrose Municipal Court needs only minimal investment to make itself a court of record, including some staff time and equipment modifications, Dowsey said in a statement.

As to why the city waited so long to make this happen, Dowsey said, "At the time, there was no business reason to do so, there was no mandate to do so, and there was no push by the state legislature or the courts to do so."

The Denver Post, over the past two years, has detailed numerous examples of municipal courts around the state not following the law. The reporting showcased how Colorado’s more than 200 municipal courts operate with little oversight and scrutiny, since they run independently from the state judicial department.

The newspaper found a judge who improperly threatened to call immigration authorities on a defendant in his courtroom and a court that illegally used contempt of court to dramatically inflate jail sentences for poor and unhoused individuals.

Meanwhile, municipal courts around the state are adjusting to a new normal after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in December that cities cannot punish lawbreakers beyond what state statute would allow for the same offenses. This decision has led city councils to adopt new ordinances, judges to adjust their advisements for defendants and prosecutors and defense attorneys to negotiate plea deals under new guidelines.

The Supreme Court’s ruling came after The Post detailed how municipal courts had become the state’s most punitive forums for minor crimes, with people convicted of low-level offenses facing exponentially more jail time in city courts than they would if convicted of the same offense in state court.

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