Denver City Council members debated proposed changes to the city’s criminal sentencing code on Wednesday, showing a thorny divide about whether the city should lessen the sentences for some local charges.
A Colorado Supreme Court ruling from December has reinvigorated the conversation, but the council has yet to reach any agreement.
The change is meant to bring the city’s punishments for crimes — such as theft and destroying property — in line with how the state punishes similar crimes in its own courts. Denver and other cities have had much harsher sentences than the state for some charges.
The change has support from groups like the ACLU of Colorado and the local public defenders’ office.
But some argue the proposal will make local sentences too lenient, and they’ve called for more work on the proposal. The debate comes amid months of arguments about crime and homelessness in the city.
A council committee delayed further discussion to May 13 after hearing a presentation from council members Sarah Parady, Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez and Shontel Lewis. Several people joined to testify and share their concerns.
What would change?
Currently, most municipal offenses can be punished by up to 300 days in jail and a $999 fine in Denver. The proposal would reduce the city’s “general penalty” to a maximum of 120 days in jail and a $750 fine.
But some local crimes don’t have a comparable state offense, such as flourishing a weapon. In those cases, the maximum sentence would be 10 days and a $300 fine.
Critics worried that the 10-day maximum would be applied too broadly, becoming the real “general penalty.”
“That catch-all provision swallows the rule. And that (10-day maximum) becomes the new general penalty in Denver, and there's no other city in the metro area that has a general penalty that low,” said Marley Bordovsky, director of the City Attorney's Office’s Prosecution and Code Enforcement Section.
Parady said the city needs to take action to lessen penalties.
“I cannot, in good faith, allow us to leave those offenses at 300 days,” she said. “They should be 10 (days), maybe they should be even less than 10, but there is no argument in a rational sentencing scheme for treating those things more (harshly).”
Punishing ‘offenses of poverty’?
Some, like state Rep. Javier Mabrey, who represents Denver in the state House, say that’s absolutely necessary. Mabrey worked on state legislation in 2025 that sought to make municipal sentences equal to the state’s. Gov. Jared Polis vetoed the bill.
“So many of these offenses, camping, loitering, trespassing, are offenses of poverty. And using lengthy jail sentences to punish poverty does not solve anything,” Mabrey said during public comment. “If the state legislature could undertake a comprehensive misdemeanor code review and lower sentencing caps for the lowest level offenses, surely Denver can do the same.”
Some speakers said the change would cause disorder and leave crimes unpunished.
City Council President Amanda Sandoval said she’s supportive of the changes in general, but was concerned about specific details — like whether wealthy people would just pay the fine to escape true punishment on some city charges.
Councilmember Darrell Watson agreed.
“Without the ability to have longer sentencing for disobeying the code within the city, if we simply only have 10 days (in jail) to add on top of the fees for the slum lords. The slum lords have written into their operation of these buildings, the ability to consume that cost,” he said.
Watson said the proposal lumps a “whole host of penalties and fines and punishments that were not spoken to by the state supreme court decision.”
“This is not required by the state. We are arbitrarily leaning in, and I believe it is an overreach of our legislative power to do this,” he said.
Denver District Attorney John Walsh stated in a letter that the proposal would negatively impact domestic violence survivors and those dealing with stalking, because it would limit the effectiveness of charges for violations of protective orders.
He also wrote that the proposal “seeks to enact a sweeping reduction of penalties on almost all city ordinances, even those not covered by the Supreme Court’s decision.”
Some movement through council
The proposal has gone through several rounds of feedback with city organizations like the city attorney’s office, municipal judges, the mayor’s office and various community groups, including domestic violence survivor coalitions, Parady said.
It’s changed since its first draft, which council members acknowledged.
“I went from being an absolute no to being willing to consider this,” Councilmember Amanda Sawyer said at the meeting.
For example, the proposal now separates trespass of a dwelling from other forms of trespass, giving trespass of a dwelling a steeper penalty. Parady said this changed after city prosecutors argued that going into a person’s home is a more serious offense.
“They’ve incorporated a lot of our feedback,” Bordovsky said to the council.
