Colorado’s No. 3 city might contract out its public defender office to attorneys in private practice, a move that could save local taxpayers $1 million a year by some estimates. It’s almost half the $2.2 million Aurora City Hall city now spends annually representing indigent criminal suspects.

And there’s another potential dividend to the pending proposal under consideration by the Aurora City Council and championed by council member Dustin Zvonek: It would ensure Aurora taxpayers are only providing legal representation to suspects who can’t foot the bill — not subsidizing their daily lives.

It’s an issue with implications beyond Aurora city limits.

An enlightening Gazette report this week compared and contrasted how Colorado’s three biggest cities — Denver, Colorado Springs and Aurora — provide lawyers to those of meager means facing petty offenses in municipal court. What emerged in the coverage is how the two cities that staff their own public defender offices have wound up assisting clients through the “life situations” that purportedly got them in trouble with the law.

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Denver’s chief public defender, Colette Tvedt told The Gazette her office provides clients services that address more than their legal straits. She said suspects needing public defenders typically face charges like shoplifting or trespassing, which she seemed to blame on their circumstances — rather than on their bad choices 

“So many of our clients are charged with crimes based upon their situation in life,” Tvedt said. “It’s one thing to get a not guilty, but it’s another thing to really help someone get back on their feet or try to help them in any way that we can.”

Aurora’s Chief Deputy Public Defender Elizabeth Cadiz said her office does, “anything and everything you could possibly think of for helping clients, like directing them to resources to help them get clothes or food, find childcare when they’re expected to be in court…”

Blaming suspects’ criminal behavior on low income insults all the Coloradans of limited means who manage to get by without breaking the law.

Meanwhile, it insults taxpayers to recast public defenders as social workers.

It amounts to mission creep, and it’s costly.

In Colorado Springs, where City Hall instead farms out legal representation for indigent offenders in municipal court, the price per case to taxpayers is dramatically lower. As The Gazette reported, it’s less than half that of Denver’s and roughly only a third of Aurora’s.

It’s no wonder. Lawyers in private practice provide a competent defense and sound legal advice — but don’t have time to play social justice warriors.

To be clear, what’s at issue here aren’t the state public defenders funded by taxpayers throughout Colorado for criminal suspects who are charged with felonies and can’t afford a lawyer. Those public defenders work in the state’s district courts, where serious crimes are tried, and prison sentences are handed out.

The much-needed reassessment underway by the Aurora City Council applies strictly to the city’s own public defender office — Aurora and Denver are the only cities that have one — which only represents suspects facing misdemeanors in local Municipal Court.

As The Gazette’s report notes, some of the cost drivers in Aurora and Denver don’t apply to Colorado Springs. Aurora commendably mandated time in local jail for some misdemeanor offenses involving auto theft and shoplifting. Both Denver and Aurora also prosecute misdemeanor domestic violence cases in municipal court.

Colorado Springs municipal courts don’t try such cases, which are costlier to defend. But even if they did, lawyers in private practice likely would handle those cases more efficiently, as well.

In any event, the underlying issue is the same.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees indigent criminal suspects legal representation — not an assist to “get back on their feet.” Colorado Springs got it right; Aurora is on the right track — and Denver should take note.

Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board