The city of Colorado Springs has agreed to pay $103,000 and put a stop to the practice of jailing defendants too poor to pay fines for low-level offenses.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado announced the settlement in a press release on Thursday.
ACLU lawyers had asserted in a letter they sent to the city in October that the that regularly jailed the homeless and others too poor to pay fines.
The Colorado Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court have ruled that jailing those too poor to pay fines is unconstitutional. But the ACLU has documented numerous instances of imposing such sentences.
As part of the settlement, municipal judges in Colorado Springs were ordered in December to stop imposing such sentences. The Colorado Springs city council in March officially eliminated the practice.
As part of the settlement, the city agreed to pay one of those who was jailed under the practice, Shawn Hardman, $11,250. Another individual, Barry Crews, will be paid $1,500. Two others will will receive a combined $500.
A statement from the ACLU said Hardman was sentenced on four occasions to a total of more than 90 days in jail for non-jailable panhandling tickets.
“I was trapped in a cell that it seemed like I could never get out of,” Hardman said in the statement released by the ACLU. “I was told over and over that I either had to pay or go back to jail. I was homeless and jobless, so the cycle kept repeating.”
The city also agreed to make a total of $37,625 available to compensate 62 other individuals jailed solely for a non-jailable offense at any time since Jan. 1, 2014, according to the settlement terms.
Colorado Springs also agreed in the settlement to issue the ACLU Foundation of Colorado a check in the amount of $52,159.18.
The issue of jailing the indigent too poor to pay fines also has attracted the attention of the legislature, which in 2014 and this year that clarified that the practice was against Colorado law.
Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747, cosher@denverpost.com or @chrisosher
