Six months after widespread racial justice protests catalyzed the Colorado General Assembly to pass sweeping reforms to policing and law enforcement accountability, the Democratic majority is planning to push the envelope further.

“The entire General Assembly, especially and particularly my side of the aisle – the Democratic side of the aisle – have taken up the mantra of law enforcement accountability,” said Rep. Leslie Herod, D-Denver, one of the chief proponents of Senate Bill 217 in the 2020 session.

Herod said she plans to bring forward technical changes to SB217, though she emphasized there will be “no substantial changes” to major features like the elimination of qualified immunity as a defense for police officers.

In conjunction with the Colorado State Patrol, Herod has been working on a bill to address driver license suspension, known as restraint, which sometimes occurs when the individual owes fines and fees. There have been 309,000 restraints in the past three years, including for infractions like owing child support.

“We have tried to push legislation on that front but that has been stopped because of the financial/revenue loss to DMV and Judicial [Department],” Denise Maes, executive director of the ACLU of Colorado, told Colorado Politics following a report about $132.8 million the state received in fees and fines during 2019.

“I do not believe that someone should lose their driver’s license for a non-driver’s license-related offense,” Herod said.

Proposals relating to the expungement of criminal records, enhancing the use of mental health co-responders alongside police officers and putting limits on the use of police radio encryption are also in development. As with SB217, some policy ideas stem from the circumstances surrounding the high-profile killings of Black Americans by police within the past few years.

For instance, Herod mentioned an examination of no-knock warrants (like the one used prior to Breonna Taylor’s death in Louisville, Kentucky), the use of ketamine and other sedatives without consent (like in Elijah McClain’s death in Aurora), and clarifying law enforcement’s ability to work with coroners during forensic investigations (also McClain).

However, Sen. John Cooke, R-Greeley, was skeptical of some of those ideas, particularly any attempt to curtail no-knock warrants.

“You can’t have an outright ban on that. That’s people who have no idea what law enforcement is like trying to tell law enforcement what’s best for them,” he said. 

Cooke, a former sheriff of Weld County, said that he is working on a “Brady Bill,” named for the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision addressing prosecutors’ suppression of evidence. Cooke’s bill will relate to “Brady lists” of officers who have credibility issues, and the ability of those officers to have their story heard before being identified to prosecutors.

Sen. Pete Lee, D-Colorado Springs, who is the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, added that the list of proposed legislation includes measures to increase and improve the diversion of juveniles from the criminal justice system and to revise the “Draconian sentencing in cases of felony murder for the non-responsible party.”

Lee himself sponsored a bill in the 2020 session that failed to reduce – from a class 1 to a class 2 felony – the sentence incurred by someone who did not cause the death of another person, but nonetheless participated in a related crime leading up to the murder. The revision would have eliminated the possibility of life in prison.

Rep.-elect Mike Lynch, R-Wellington, told Colorado Politics he is also exploring ways to avoid conflicts between the statutory speedy-trial deadline and the COVID-19 pandemic. The state has six months from the date of a not guilty plea to bring a defendant to trial, but the Colorado Supreme Court in June allowed an additional six-month delay as long as key evidence – which could take the form of in-person witness testimony – is unavailable due to the pandemic. 

Jury trials have been delayed or drastically reduced in judicial districts across the state.

Amy J. Nichols, executive director of the County Sheriffs of Colorado, expressed concern about some of the proposals under consideration, saying lawmakers have not, for the most part, sought input from law enforcement.

“During this legislative session, it’s important state legislators work to clarify some parts of Senate Bill 217,” she said. “We also hope lawmakers will consider how their actions impact departments’ abilities to recruit and retain good officers. Even before Senate Bill 217, applications for law enforcement positions were at an all-time low. Qualified applicants are looking for jobs in other career paths, and great officers are leaving the profession for other careers.”

She added that she looked forward to providing technical information to lawmakers and avoiding unintended consequences.

Colorado’s prosecutors, on the other hand, have their own measures in the hands of lawmakers. One is a reintroduction of a bill that died in the 2020 session to modernize laws for sexual exploitation of a child. Last year’s sponsors, Reps. Terri Carver, R-Colorado Springs, and Dylan Roberts, D-Avon, indicated they would make another attempt at passage following a state Supreme Court decision on Dec. 14 affecting penalties for possessing child pornography.

“Rather than focusing on the quantity of items, the language could focus on the type of conduct – children under 12, weapons involvement, things like that,” said Tom Raynes, executive director of the Colorado District Attorneys’ Council. He added the change, unlike the Supreme Court’s interpretation, would ideally allow for criminal charges based on the number of images, without an upper limit per se on sentencing.

CDAC is also pursuing an expansion to the extortion statute, which currently requires a person to gain only money or something of value from the victim.

“We’re trying to stop the type of conduct where a person is coerced or told not to do things under threat of revealing their immigration status,” Raynes said. “One example might be in a domestic violence case if a defendant tells a victim, ‘don’t report me or I’ll let them know you’re here illegally.’ “