Denver leaders on Monday night are set to consider drastic changes in how city judges punish municipal-level criminal offenders.
The City Council drafted the proposal in light of a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that prohibits cities from handing down sentences that are harsher than the state’s penalties for the same offense. But , brought by the council’s three most progressive lawmakers, goes beyond what the ruling mandates by also changing the sentences for low-level, municipal-only crimes in an effort to decriminalize what they call “crimes of poverty.”
“When we just put people on a conveyor belt through the jail because they are poor, because they are unhoused, because they are committing crimes of desperation, that does not solve those issues. It, in fact, makes them worse — and it is a massive waste of public resources,” said Councilwoman Sarah Parady, one of the bill’s sponsors, during the first full council vote last week.
that don’t have a counterpart in state law include the failure to leash a dog, violating curfew, smoking indoors, disturbances of the peace and littering. The proposed changes would reduce them to a maximum penalty of 10 days in jail and a fine of $300, down from the 300 days in jail or $999 fine that are the current maximums for most municipal crimes.
The proposal has gone through more than a dozen iterations as the sponsors have worked with Mayor Mike Johnston’s office to find compromises over how to reduce some of those sentences without risking public safety.
In a letter to the council, Johnston said he was no longer opposed to the legislation after the most recent round of changes.
“As a result of the dialogue between my office and the ordinance’s sponsors, we were able to resolve every single concern we had with the legislation,” Johnston wrote in the June 24 letter.
His administration called out specific municipal-only crimes that officials prioritized for keeping a more severe sentence, including some that often intersect with domestic violence, like threats to property and flourishing a weapon.
Other local crimes, such as indecent exposure and wrongs to minors, will also remain in a higher sentencing tier.
What the proposed changes would do
The proposed ordinance — which is set to have its final vote Monday unless a majority of the council votes to postpone it — would lay out a new 5-tiered sentencing structure and align the city’s maximum punishments with state statutes for similar offenses.
The new municipal sentencing scheme would break down offenses in five buckets:
- Class 1, which deals with the most serious offenses, such as assault or domestic violence, would stay the same. Those penalties cannot exceed 364 days in jail and a $999 fine.
- Class 2 would now equate to a Class 1 misdemeanor offense under state law. These crimes — such as threats, trespassing and harassment — would be punishable by up to 300 days in jail and a $999 fine.
- Class 3, which includes prostitution, resisting arrest and shoplifting, would line up with Class 2 misdemeanor offenses under state law. People convicted under this tier would face up to 120 days in jail and as much as $750 in fines.
- Class 4 would encompass crimes considered petty offenses under state law, such as public urination, panhandling and public indecency. They would be punishable by up to 10 days in jail and not more than a $300 fine.
- Class 5 would concern civil infractions under state law and could not carry jail time.
The ordinance also would create a commission to make recommendations for appropriate penalties for municipal-only crimes. The committee would include about 20 people and would submit a written report by next March.
It would include representatives of the mayor, the city attorney, the municipal public defender, the Denver Police Department, a business improvement district, and advocates for immigrants and racial justice reform, among others.
How Denver got here
The court-mandated changes have been a long time coming. In 2021, on the heels of nationwide protests for racial justice, that significantly lowered the potential penalties for misdemeanor and petty offenses in Colorado’s state courts.
The changes made many low-level crimes, like petty theft, shoplifting and trespassing, punishable by a maximum of 10 days in jail.
In his letter to the council, Johnston said he disagreed with the state’s decision to reduce penalties for many of those crimes, saying he believed the change would have a “negative impact on public safety.”
But those reforms didn’t impact municipal courts, which are not part of the state judicial system. As a result, someone charged in municipal court faced the possibility of exponentially more jail time than an individual charged with the same offense in state court.
In 2023, Denver councilmembers and stakeholders began working to address the sentence disparities. Then, in December, the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously that itap unconstitutional for a city to exceed state sentencing caps for like crimes.
The ruling forced cities around Colorado to reexamine their codes, judges to alter their advisements and prosecutors to change their plea deals.
“The majority of this, itap already happening,” Councilwoman Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez, one of the bill’s sponsors, said of what’s proposed. “We’re not making any new crimes, we’re not taking any crimes away. People will still be accountable.”
The council sponsors initially wanted to classify all municipal offenses that don’t have a state counterpart as Class 4 violations — meaning judges could impose a maximum of only 10 days in jail. They pointed to data showing that the vast majority of people charged in Denver’s municipal court — at least 75% — are at or below the federal poverty level.
About 12,000 municipal-only offenses are prosecuted each year, and between September 2023 and September 2025, 600 people were sentenced to more than 10 days in jail for municipal-only offenses, according to the sponsors’ presentation.
Johnston’s administration and several council members opposed that change, saying it would hinder the city’s ability to enforce fire and licensing codes for things like landlord regulations.
In response to the pushback, the sponsors decided to leave the majority of the city’s code at the general penalty (300 days in jail and a $999 fine).
Tensions around changes
The council conversations around the ordinance have been exceptionally tense, with council members losing decorum in some meetings as emotions have run hot. The council committee chambers overflowed during an April meeting when members of the public had a chance to weigh in on the changes.
Council members Darrell Watson, Amanda Sawyer and Kevin Flynn have led opposition to the bill. Council members Chris Hinds and Flor Alvidrez also voiced concerns throughout the process.
“If we make a mistake and pass something that has a dramatic effect on victims of crime … we can make whatever changes we need,” Watson said during the initial council vote. “But victims of crime, for the decisions we make tonight and next week, do not have a do-over.”
During last week’s discussion, Watson pressed the sponsors on their motivations for earlier versions of the bill, even as they amended away some of the elements he opposed.
Council members, including the President Amanda Sandoval, have lambasted Watson, who is the chair of the committee that first considered the bill, for using that position to hinder the bill’s passage.
In a 10-2 vote last week, Watson and Sawyer were the only members who voted no, with Flynn absent. Hinds, who represents the city’s urban core, voted yes but hinted he may not support the bill’s final passage.
“There is a concern from the community that the revitalization of downtown is fragile, and we don’t want to negatively impact the revitalization of downtown by eroding municipal-only offenses,” he said.
The council will take its final vote after another public hearing on the ordinance that’s set on its 5:30 p.m. meeting agenda.
