Colorado
Gov. Jared Polis vetoes bill addressing sentencing disparities between Colorado’s state and municipal courts
Gov. Jared Polis on Friday vetoed a bill that would have mandated Colorado’s municipal courts conform to state sentencing guidelines.
The governor, in a letter released Friday afternoon, said House Bill 1147’s sponsors had good intentions, but the legislation would have restricted municipalities’ ability to react to local crime trends in a manner they see fit.
“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,” he wrote. “Criminal justice and public safety issues are a shared concern among state and local lawmakers, and municipalities must have the ability to adopt laws to increase public safety based on the public safety challenges on the ground in each community.”
The legislation would have barred city courts from handing out sentences that exceed state limits for the same crimes. The legislature in 2021 significantly reduced penalties for low-level, nonviolent crimes in Colorado’s state courts. However, municipal courts, which operate individually and are not part of the state judicial system, were not included in the statute.
As a result, defendants in Colorado’s municipal courts can face much longer sentences than those in state court for the same petty offenses, The Denver Post previously found.
Polis said he supported two of the provisions in 1147: language clarifying that a defendant in municipal court has the right to counsel, and making clear that proceedings should be open to the public. He said he would support a narrower bill addressing those topics, or one tailored to addressing specific crimes where penalties between the state and local criminal codes are “far out of balance.”
Bill sponsors Reps. Javier Mabrey and Elizabeth Velasco and Sens. Judy Amabile and Mike Weissman, all Democrats, were alerted in April to the potential Polis veto.
“It’s incredibly disappointing that we’re doubling down on a broken status quo, where we have two systems of justice operating side by side,” Mabrey said Friday in an interview. “We will allow someone to go to jail and face vastly different sentences — to me, that flies in the face of the idea that we should have equal protection under the law.”
“This is wrong constitutionally, wrong morally, and it’s wrong as an approach to public safety,” he said.
Cities vehemently opposed the bill, saying the changes would encroach on their ability to deal with crimes specific to their areas. The Colorado Constitution, they argued, allows for home rule, meaning cities have the freedom to legislate on matters of local concern.
The mayors of Colorado’s three largest cities — Denver, Aurora and Colorado Springs — asked Polis in a letter to veto the legislation.
The Colorado Supreme Court this week heard oral arguments on two cases that touch on the sentence disparity issue. In those cases, arresting officers could have sent the individuals to state court for minor infractions, but elected to send both to municipal court, where they faced exponentially longer potential jail sentences.
Their attorneys argued this violates their equal protection under the Colorado Constitution.
A ruling, which won’t come for a few months, could have wide-ranging impacts on municipal codes throughout the state. Polis, in his veto letter, said he would like to see how the court rules before changing the law.
The governor, in April, did sign a separate bill into law that prohibits cities from criminalizing the failure to appear for a court hearing.
SB62, sponsored by Sens. Nick Hinrichsen and Mike Weissman and Reps. Michael Carter and Lindsay Gilchrist, all Democrats, came after a Denver Post investigation found Pueblo municipal judges were regularly using contempt of court charges to punish people for skipping court proceedings.
These charges — in some cases dozens of them — inflated sentences for defendants who otherwise faced little to no jail time on minor city offenses like loitering, trespassing and shoplifting, The Post found. Pueblo city judges sent people to jail for months on charges that in other Colorado courts are punished by one or two days in jail, if that.
A district court judge in Pueblo in January ruled that that practice was unconstitutional and released several people from jail.
Polis on Friday also vetoed a bill that would have allowed those 72 years or older to choose to temporarily or permanently opt out of jury service. The governor noted that between 2025 and 2050, the population of Coloradans in that demographic is expected to grow significantly. Plus, he added, a “jury of one’s peers means representation from all age groups.”
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Happy Colorado Sunday, fam.
Sometime back in the middle ‘90s, I had followed entrepreneurial friends to Fort Collins to participate in a full-fledged war among three upstart business publications and was building sources by saying yes to anyone who wanted to share a word about the town, the economy, the community. Accountants. Retailers. Doctors. Realtors. Gary Wockner.
I don’t think Wockner made a business case for protecting the Poudre River that day, but I left our unplanned chat at a coffee shop with clear feelings about how important the ribbon of water running through town was and an invitation to appreciate it, too.
This was before Wockner dug in to fight the massive Glade Reservoir project and rebranded as a river warrior. Before he distributed posters of other defenders standing naked in the river, holding hand-lettered cards over their heads reading “Save the Poudre.”
I changed jobs many times, but wherever I’ve been, Gary Wockner has been a constant character on the environment beat, his defense of the Poudre fiercening over time. This week’s cover story by Jerd Smith gave me a bit more insight into the man who just won’t quit — and the way his work has influenced how we use and regard our rivers.
Meet the water warrior we love to hate
Water agitator Gary Wockner, founder of Save The Poudre and Save the Colorado, is having a bang-up 2025, winning a $100 million settlement from Northern Water in March, and persuading a federal judge in April to stop construction of the partially complete Gross Reservoir Dam project, at least temporarily. Now critical appeals in the case could ultimately lower the amount of water Denver Water, the dam’s owner, will be allowed to divert from the Upper Colorado River system in Grand County.
Wockner is a controversial figure in the water world. He has filed nine major lawsuits against Colorado water projects during his 25-year run as an activist. With this year’s wins, we decided to tell readers a bit more about the man who is loved by fierce river protectors, and who draws few, if any, kind words from the water establishment.
READ THIS WEEK’S COLORADO SUNDAY FEATURE
No need to wait for the Crested Butte Wildflower Festival July 11-20, the viewing season is already in full swing in the Gunnison Valley. Photojournalist Dean Krakel went on a few hikes and returned with some beautiful images and tips for where to find hillsides awash in brilliant pre-peak colors. Drifts of lupine and balsamroot are already blanketing the hillsides of the lower valleys, he said. Red columbine can be found in the shady recesses along the banks of streams and creeks along with wild iris and stands of golden banner. Paintbrush, blue flax and white and lavender phlox carpet the ground alongside many of the lower trails.
Thinking of climbing Longs Peak? Think again.
It was the fall of 2020, and I had survived COVID, so I went looking for the next most dangerous thing I could think of: Climb Longs Peak!
I had been haunted by that prospect since I moved to Colorado and took my car to the emissions testing facility in Fort Collins. I pulled into the bay and there it was, perfectly framed in the doorway: Longs freaking Peak!
It took me a full three years to summon the nerve, the skills, the gear, and oh yeah, the nerve, to tackle Longs. I made it up, and back, so now I’m an expert.
Here’s my step-by-step guide to climbing Longs Peak. Or not.
CHECK OUT PETER MOORE’S TIPS FOR TACKLING COLORADO’S 15TH TALLEST PEAK
“Sonata in Wax” plays haunting piano backdrop to protagonist’s struggles
EXCERPT: A protagonist captivated by a century-old recording drives this debut novel by Edward Hamlin, which explores dual narrative timelines and a theme that hinges on a lie of omission and the consequences of confession. Hamlin, an accomplished musician and composer himself, melded his passion for music with strains of family history to produce this Colorado Book Award finalist for Novel. Remember Chase and Sanborn coffee? Hamlin is the last living descendant from the Sanborn side, Boston social elites who figure into the portion of the story that’s historical fiction.
READ THE SUNLIT EXCERPT
THE SUNLIT INTERVIEW: Hamlin explains how much he enjoyed writing this particular excerpt, which conjures the “ecstatic experience of hearing breathtaking music just when you needed it.” He also tells how the complex plot required some management skills. Here’s a slice of this week’s Q&A:
SunLit: What were the biggest challenges you faced in writing this book?
Hamlin: Managing the sequence of reveals was challenging, as they crossed a wide cast of characters and a hundred years of plot events. Keeping track of who knew what when literally required a spreadsheet. It was also a challenge to make decisions, both micro and macro, about how to treat the historical figures, especially when they were my own ancestors. It would have been so much easier if I could have just shared a meal with them.
READ THE INTERVIEW WITH EDWARD HAMLIN
LISTEN TO A DAILY SUN-UP PODCAST WITH THE AUTHOR
A curated list of what you may have missed from The Colorado Sun this week.
🌞 Is selling millions of acres of U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land in 11 Western states the solution to the housing crisis in the region? Details are scant, Jason Blevins, reports, but that’s the concept outlined by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who described the properties to be sold as “barren land next to highways with existing billboards that have no recreational value.”
🌞 Young adults just entering the job market face fierce headwinds. Tamara Chung reports on a program aiming to arm new workers with a powerful tool to open doors: social capital.
🌞 Costs to build the controversial 88-mile Uinta Basin Railway have more than doubled since 2020 and backers are looking for $2.4 billion in tax-exempt bonds to cover part of the $3.4 billion tab, Jason Blevins reports. Environmental groups fear that the increased cost of construction will drive more drilling and send more oil tankers rolling on tracks across Colorado.
🌞 U.S. Health and Human Services boss Robert F. Kennedy Jr. used a Wall Street Journal opinion column to fire all 17 members of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, including a Denver doctor. John Ingold landed an interview with Dr. Edwin Asturias, an infectious disease specialist, who worries the mass dismissals will undermine the public trust in decisions that come out of the group in the future. Meanwhile, more cases of measles were reported in Colorado last week.
🌞 In other RFK Jr. news, remarks he made about people with autism have stirred up trouble within a nonprofit organization for people with autism that was started by his cousin Anthony Shriver. Jennifer Brown reports on the way Best Buddies board members in Colorado have responded to the refusal of the national organization to call out how damaging the remarks were.
🌞 There are a dozen new gun laws on the books — officially — in Colorado. Jesse Paul explains a bit about each of them.
🌞 Former U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo was on stage last week for a Back From Broken Event hosted by Vic Vela. Taylor Dolven was there when Caraveo compared her suicidal thoughts during her unsuccessful campaign to keep her seat to drowning, saying she pulled under those who came to rescue. She also advocated for better understanding of depression and anxiety and more awareness to recognize when someone is struggling. And she said she’s well and ready to take on a large group of challengers in the 8th Congressional District Democratic primary next year.
🌞 This week in gray wolf news, Colorado Parks and Wildlife was pretty mum when a Pitkin County rancher told Tracy Ross there is a den with pups uncomfortably close to his cattle. The day after her story published, the agency announced there are indeed pups in at least one of the four den sites biologists are watching, but would not say where.
🌞 While Coloradans continue to debate the wisdom of wolf reintroduction five years after a public authorization vote, bison that reintroduce themselves to the state by walking across the border from Utah just got the backing of Colorado law that makes it illegal to kill them without a hunting license, Michael Booth explains.
When we meet again next week, it will officially be summer and The Sun store has your back, restocked with gear to help keep you wrinkle-free and well hydrated all season long. Check it all out at store.coloradosun.com
— Dana & the whole staff of The Sun
Corrections & Clarifications
Notice something wrong? The Colorado Sun has an ethical responsibility to fix all factual errors. Request a correction by emailing corrections@coloradosun.com.
The Colorado State Patrol is piecing together what happened when a driver heading the wrong way on Highway 76 reportedly caused a fatal crash Friday night.
According to CSP, a GMC Sierra pickup truck, driven by a 62-year-old Denver resident, was driving east in the westbound lanes of Highway 76 near County Road MM3 just before 11 p.m. A woman driving a Honda west on the highway swerved to avoid the truck, but authorities said the truck’s front passenger side struck the front passenger side of her car.
The truck then rotated clockwise and rolled, coming to a rest in the road on its roof. The Honda reportedly continued east and drove off the road. CSP said the driver and passenger in the Honda were wearing seatbelts at the time of the crash.
Authorities said the passenger in the Honda, a 44-year-old man from Thornton, was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced deceased. The Honda driver and the driver of the Sierra were both taken to the hospital for treatment of minor injuries.
CSP said charges are pending, and the crash remains under investigation.
Another round of summer storms moved into Colorado on Friday afternoon, bringing the chance of scattered hail, strong wind gusts and frequent lightning.
The NWS said the severe thunderstorm watch is in effect for much of northeastern Colorado through 10 p.m. As of 4:30 p.m., they have issued two tornado warnings in connection with the storm, one in Adams County south of E. 152nd Avenue and one affecting the areas around Lochbuie and Hudson. Both warnings expired at 4:30 p.m.
A special weather statement warned that a possible landspout may touch down near Limon and Genoa. The warning is in effect until 5:15 p.m.
Last Chance, Colo., is under a severe thunderstorm warning until 5:15 p.m. A severe thunderstorm warning is in effect for Weld County until 5:45 p.m.
This is a developing story. More information will be provided as it becomes available.
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