Court Cases

The ACLU of Colorado joined ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project, Civil Rights Corps, Professors Kellen R. Funk and Sandra G. Mayson, and the Korey Wise Innocence Project in support of a petition for rehearing regarding the state constitutional right to bail.

The ACLU of Colorado filed an amicus brief arguing that Colorado’s Sexually Violent Predator designation is punishment.

The ACLU of Colorado filed an amicus brief with Spero Justice and Office of the Alternate Defense Counsel arguing that Colorado’s habitual sentencing scheme is unconstitutional.

In 2019, the Colorado Supreme Court changed how lengthy sentences are reviewed for proportionality. Now, the Court will decide whether people who were sentenced before 2019 can benefit from those changes.

We filed an amicus brief calling for an end to mandatory life without parole sentences for people convicted of felony murder.

The ACLU of Colorado filed amicus briefs in two jury selection cases, arguing that prosecutors cannot exclude people of color from juries based on their experiences of racial injustice with police.

In a groundbreaking ruling issued in 2017, federal district judge Richard Matsch declared that the Colorado statute requiring lifetime sex offender registry imposed cruel and unusual punishment on three convicted sex offenders whose cases the court heard in a bench trial. The civil rights case was litigated in the trial court by attorney Colorado attorney Alison Ruttenberg.

The Wheat Ridge Municipal Court violated a Colorado law banning debtor’s prison practices by sentencing a homeless man to jail because he could not pay a fine, according to a filing made on his behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado.

In this case, ACLU attorneys challenged an Englewood ordinance that makes it a crime for registered sex offenders to live within 2,000 feet of any school, park, or playground, or 1,000 feet of any licensed day care center, recreation center, or swimming pool. As a practical matter, the ordinance bans previously convicted sex offenders from living in the city.