Feb. 28, 2013

Rob Boston or Simon Brown, Americans United, 202-466-3234; [email protected]; [email protected] 

Rebecca Wallace, ACLU of Colorado, (720) 296-9545; [email protected]
Robyn Shepherd, ACLU national, 212-549-7829 or 519-2666; [email protected]

APPEALS COURT UPHOLDS VOUCHER PLAN THAT WOULD FUND RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS IN COLORADO

Ruling Will Be Appealed To Colorado Supreme Court, ACLU And Americans United Say

A Colorado appeals court ruled 2-1 today that a voucher plan adopted by the Douglas County School District does not violate the Colorado Constitution by diverting taxpayer money to pay students’ tuition at religious and other private schools.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado and the national ACLU criticized the ruling.

“This misguided decision fails to enforce the Colorado Constitution’s strict prohibitions against public funding of religious education,” said Alex J. Luchenitser, associate legal director for Americans United. “It’s clear that this voucher plan will funnel taxpayer money primarily into the coffers of religious schools.”

The organizations challenged the program on behalf of a group of parents, clergy and other taxpayers. A lower court had previously struck down the plan.

“While families have the right to decide where their children should attend school, the state cannot finance religious education at private institutions,” said Heather L. Weaver, staff attorney for the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. “Public education funds should be used to help improve our public schools, not to promote religion in violation of the state constitution.”

AU and the ACLU plan to file an appeal before the Colorado Supreme Court.

“The Colorado Court of Appeals got it wrong today when it found that Douglas County’s scheme to underwrite the religious education of children was constitutional,” says Mark Silverstein, Legal Director for the ACLU of Colorado. “We hope and expect that the Colorado Supreme Court will ultimately decide this case and affirm the district court’s ruling that diverting taxpayer money to pay students’ tuition at primarily religious, private schools is a clear violation of the religious liberty provisions of the Colorado Constitution.”

“The decision fundamentally misinterprets prior Colorado Supreme Court cases interpreting the religion clauses of the Colorado Constitution,” said attorney Matthew J. Douglas of the Denver office of the international law firm Arnold & Porter LLP, who argued the appeal, and is serving as cooperating counsel for the ACLU and Americans United. “Ultimately these issues should be decided by the Colorado Supreme Court.”

The so-called “Choice Scholarship Pilot Program” offered tuition vouchers worth $4,575 to 500 students to spend at religious and other private schools. For the purposes of obtaining state per-pupil educational funds, Douglas County still counted these children as “public school students” attending an imaginary school that exists only on paper.

In reality, the voucher money was spent at district-approved “Private School Partners.” As of the filing of the lawsuit, 18 of the 23 approved Private School Partners are religious.

Dissenting from the 2-1 decision, Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Steve Bernard wrote, “In my view, [the Colorado Constitution] prohibits public school districts from channeling public money to private religious schools. I think that the Choice Scholarship Program is a pipeline that violates this direct and clear constitutional command.”

The lawsuit, LaRue v. Colorado Board of Education, argues that the voucher plan violates the Colorado Constitution’s ban on the use of public funds for religious schools and state laws that require educational funds to pay for public education and remain under government control.

The plaintiffs are represented by Douglas, Timothy R. Macdonald, and Michelle K. Albert of Arnold & Porter LLP; Luchenitser and Ayesha N. Khan of Americans United; Weaver and Daniel Mach of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief; and Silverstein and Sara Rich of the ACLU of Colorado.

Americans United is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom.

Find out more about this case.

February 21, 2013

On July 9, 2010 homeless preacher Marvin Booker died at the hands of 5 Denver Sheriff deputies in the holding room of the Denver Jail. Despite the efforts of the ACLU of Colorado and others, no charges were filed against the deputies and it appeared as though Denver PD would be able to continue using excessive force with impunity. However, today we have learned there is still hope that there will be justicefor Mr. Booker. The FBI and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice are investigating the incident and have requested documents related to the case from Denver. For the complete story, see today's Denver Post article.

For more information about police brutality in Colorado see our Race to Justice page.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado accused three Front Range cities this morning of jailing people for failing to pay court-ordered fines that they are too poor to pay. Relying on state and federal court decisions, the ACLU sent letters to the cities demanding a prompt halt to the practice.
The ACLU conducted an in-depth investigation into the municipal courts of Westminster, Wheat Ridge, and Northglenn, which routinely issue “pay or serve” warrants without any consideration for or inquiry into a debtor’s ability to pay.
“Pay- or-serve” warrants authorize a debtor’s arrest. Once in custody, the debtor must either pay the full amount of the fine or “pay down” the fine by serving time in jail at a daily rate set by the court. Wheat Ridge and Northglenn set the rate at $50 per day, while Westminster converts all unpaid fines into ten-day sentences. None of the three cities has a process to determine whether the debtor has the ability to pay, as federal and state law require.
“These ‘pay-or-serve’ warrants return Colorado to the days of debtors’ prisons, which were abolished long ago,” said Mark Silverstein, ACLU Legal Director. “Jailing poor people for fines they cannot pay violates the Constitution and punishes poor people just for being poor. It also wastes taxpayer resources, crowds the jails, and doesn’t get the fines paid.”
The Jefferson County Jail imprisoned at least 154 people on pay-or-serve warrants during a five-month period from February to June of this year. During that time period, 973 days were served at a cost to taxpayers of more than $70 per day, for a total cost of more than $70,000. These 973 fine days cancelled out $40,000 of fines, making the total loss to the taxpayer $110,000.
“Jailing the poor for failure to pay a fine is not only unconstitutional, but also fundamentally unfair,” says ACLU of Colorado Staff Attorney Rebecca T. Wallace. “This practice creates a two-tiered system of justice in which those who can afford to pay their legal debts avoid jail and can move on with their lives, and those unable to pay end up imprisoned.”
Examples from the ACLU letters include Jared Thornburg, who was sentenced by the Westminster Municipal Court to ten days in jail when he could not pay a $165 fine for driving a defective vehicle, a non-jailable offense. The Northglenn Municipal Court sentenced a homeless man to four days in jail when he was unable to pay a $190 fine for possession of a marijuana pipe. Linda Roberts, a homeless and disabled woman, was sentenced to fifteen days by the Wheat Ridge Municipal Court when she could not pay $671 in fines and court costs. In each case, no inquiry was made into the debtor’s ability to pay.
The municipal court practices criticized in the ACLU’s letters are emblematic of a wider problem, Silverstein said. According to the ACLU, municipal courts in the majority of Colorado’s largest cities order the arrest of persons who miss payments on court-ordered fines, with most of them specifying jail time in proportion to the size of the unpaid debt.
The City of Denver is an exception. Denver stopped issuing warrants for failure to pay money at the beginning of 2012, citing the high costs associated with jailing debtors and the lost revenue of forfeiting fines. After abandoning the practice, Denver increased the amount of fines and fees it collected in the following year, without the added cost of holding people in jail for failure to pay.
The ACLU has requested a written response from the three cities by January 10, 2014.
Visit the case page, which includes links to the ACLU letters.