A Wheat Ridge municipal judge ignored the constitutional rights of an indigent man by jailing him when he could not afford to pay court costs, civil rights lawyers asserted in a court filing on Tuesday.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado said Municipal Court Judge Christopher Randall improperly jailed a homeless panhandler with mental health issues who had no money to pay $275 in court costs. The jailing violated the Colorado Constitution, the U.S. Constitution and a new state law that bars courts from jailing people too poor to pay court costs, the ACLU said in the court filing.
Randall did not return telephone messages seeking comment.
The jailing of indigent defendants for failure to pay court costs and fines was the , which helped lead to enactment of House Bill 1061 later that year.
That legislation spelled out that municipal courts are prohibited from jailing people who don’t have the means to pay a fine. The legislation also required courts to instruct defendants that they are allowed a hearing to explain why they can’t pay and to seek a payment plan.
On Feb. 25, Randall found Wilburn Taylor guilty of contempt for failure to pay $275 in court fines that stemmed from Taylor’s arrest on a panhandling charge.
Taylor, 34, pleaded guilty to the panhandling charge in June 2014 and was ordered to pay $100 in court costs for that guilty plea. Taylor was arrested twice for failure to pay the court costs, and by the time he appeared before Randall, the court costs had risen to $275.
The ACLU said Randall negotiated a guilty plea of contempt from Taylor without providing Taylor sufficient notice that he would not be in contempt if he was unable to pay the court costs without undue hardship.
Further, Randall made no finding on the record that Taylor had the ability to comply with the order to pay the court costs, the ACLU said in the filing.
The ACLU said the transcript of the guilty plea of contempt showed Randall gave Taylor the option of serving three days in jail instead of continuing to pay escalating fines.
“I give you the chance if you want to do a little bit of jail, to do a little bit of jail and take care of the fine, so if you admit you didn’t pay your fine yet had the ability to pay the fine, I would give you three days in jail or the other thing you can do is have a hearing on this issue,” Randall said during the hearing, according to the ACLU filing.
Taylor pleaded guilty, and Randall sentenced him to three days in jail with credit for one day already served.
The court filing from the ACLU seeks to vacate Taylor’s contempt conviction.
Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747, cosher@denverpost.com or twitter.com/chrisosher
