Against Municipal Courts In Colorado

The Denver Post has an article highlighting the problems of having municipal courts not of record incarcerate people who aren't represented by lawyers with no record of the proceedings, and notes that a bill this session seeks to change that. The bill is HB26-1134:

Fairness & Transparency in Municipal Court: Concerning measures to ensure that municipal court defendants are subject to conditions similar to state court defendants.

The bill clarifies that municipal court defendants have a right to counsel and that municipal defense counsel have the same notice, case information, and opportunity to meet with their clients as do state-level defense counsel. Current law prohibits paying indigent municipal defense counsel on a fixed or flat-fee payment structure if the municipality prosecutes domestic violence cases. The bill applies the prohibition to all municipalities.

All municipal court proceedings are required to be open to public observation. Virtual observation is required for all in-custody proceedings, and prompt resolution of municipal cases is required.

Last year, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that municipalities with ordinances that parallel state crimes can't have higher penalties than the state crimes, in the wake of the state legislature reducing penalties for misdemeanors, and in the wake of Governor Polis vetoing a bill that would have mandated the same result.

A different bill last legislative session addressed the problem with municipal court judges abusing failure to appear warrants in a way that led to disproportionately harsh punishments.

None of these bills address yet another problem with the municipal court system, which is that municipal court judges are not nearly as independent of the municipal legislative bodies as state court judges are because they are appointed by the Governor in a merit based system that makes state court's independent of local governments (except for Denver County Court which is quasi-municipal).

Municipal courts also leave people arrested languishing in jail for longer than the U.S. Constitution allows because they hold court less frequently than state courts.

The simple and best solution would be to abolish municipal courts entirely and to give county court's jurisdiction over ordinance violations (which could still be prosecuted by City attorneys). 

Perhaps parking violations could be made administrative proceedings of municipalities limited to fines, boot, and tow orders instead of municipal violations.