DENVER – James Fisher, 52, was put on a payment plan of sorts by Aurora Municipal Court to cover two open container violation fines of $364, but when the temporary worker missed payments, warrants were issued for his arrest, despite a 2014 law prohibiting “debtors’ prisons.”

“What we found universally around the state is that municipal courts found a loophole around the 2014 law and now every payment date is an appearance date, and so they are issuing failure to appear warrants,” said Denise Maes, public policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado. “They aren’t doing anything illegal, but it’s in clear violation of the spirit of the 2014 law,”

House Bill 1311 is aimed at closing that loophole said Sen. Morgan Carroll, a Democrat from Aurora who presented the bill to the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday afternoon. The bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Vickie Marble, a Republican, passed 4-1 and will be heard on the floor of the Senate in the coming weeks.

“We opted to put him (Fisher) in jail,” Carroll said, who is running for U.S. House against Republican Rep. Mike Coffman. “We start with one philosophical question, ‘Is this who we want to be putting in prison?'”

That was the impetus behind a 2014 ban, under House Bill 1061, on arrest warrants being issued for failure to pay.

But municipal judges testified Thursday that taking away a court’s ability to issue a warrant for failure to appear would hinder their ability to force resolution in cases.

“We are asking folks to come to court,” said Meghan Dollar, legislative policy director for the Colorado Municipal League. “We don’t view it as a loophole. We view it as the implementation of 1061 and 1061 did not reference failure to appear, it referenced failure to pay fines.”

Dollar said when someone misses court multiple times there has to be some measure of recourse.

Fisher said the never-ending “appearances” continued even after he had paid his initial fine and was only paying the late penalties for his open container violations. He said that a result of being arrested was his inability to pay for the hotel rooms he lives in or to find reliable work as a temporary employee.

“I live every day in fear that the police will come to the hotel where I live, and put me in jail because of my debt to the court,” Fisher said.

Colorado Springs has grappled with the issue, particularly with a new sit-lie ordinance that took effect this month. Opponents of the ordinance fear it’ll lead to ticketing and eventual arrest of homeless individuals who frequently sit, lie, kneel or recline on streets or sidewalks in downtown Colorado Springs, and then are unable to pay the fine which can be up to $500.

Under HB 1311, a municipal court would be unable to put someone in jail without a hearing for failing to make a scheduled payment or “failing to appear” for a sit-lie violation. Instead a violator would have to be notified of a new court data to determine why a payment wasn’t made.

Carroll said that will prevent people going to jail for an inability to pay.

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Contact Megan Schrader: 286-0644

Twitter @CapitolSchrader

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