The Aurora City Council discussed a plan to remove domestic violence cases from municipal court and instead pass them to state, county or federal court in its study session on Wednesday.

Council members also proposed July 1, 2025, as the official transition date but did not make a definitive decision on whether or not to approve the plan.

Instead, they moved the ordinance to a further study session due to disagreements between several council members over the effects of the transition on both victims and county courts.

Councilmember Angela Lawson expressed concern about the victims of current domestic violence cases and what would happen to them if it takes a long time for their cases to transition to county courts.

“How do we make sure no one is falling through the gaps, because this transition period could be the difference between life and death for a victim,” Lawson asked Judge Shawn Day, who gave a presentation on the proposed ordinance.

To counter her point, Mayor Pro Tem Dustin Zvonek — who supported the transition — argued that the only victims this ordinance would affect are the people who have yet to be victimized because any cases filed prior to the start date would stay under the current system.

Other council members supported the ordinance but wanted a concrete start date for the transition so that county courts will have time to financially prepare for the influx of domestic violence cases, should the ordinance be passed.

Because of the hesitancy surrounding the ordinance, council members decided to discuss it at a later date, and Day said he would continue to seek input from stakeholders, who had concerns about the time it would take to hire more county staff, the funds that the county would need to take on Aurora’s domestic violence cases, and the uncertainty surrounding when the ordinance would go into effect.

In Colorado, Aurora is one of four municipalities — the other three are Lakewood, Westminster and Denver— that handle domestic violence cases.

Aurora’s municipal court has been handling domestic violence since the court began, with reported increases in domestic violence cited as part of the reason for the court’s creation. The rationale is that municipal court could handle them more quickly than state or county court, according to a 2021 review of Aurora’s public defense system from the National Legal Aid and Defender Association.

Domestic violence cases make up a large portion of the public defender’s office workload. The city prosecutes about 1,600 domestic violence cases each year, with a good portion of those going to trial with public defender representation, the review said.

Aurora’s public defenders handled over 4,000 cases in total in 2023. With a public defender’s budget of $2.2 million, that comes out to $550 per case.

Zvonek and Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky first presented the ordinance to the Public Safety, Courts and Civil Service Policy Committee in May, where it was moved to the City Council for a decision. Councilmembers delayed making a decision on the proposal in June after several councilmembers expressed concern that cases would not be tried with the same rigor at the county level.

The push to determine if Aurora could save money by contracting out for indigent defense services ended in February when a request for proposals came up empty.

The issue arose again in early April, when Jurinsky threatened during a committee meeting to pursue an ordinance that would stop the city from prosecuting domestic violence cases.

She continued to support moving domestic violence cases out of municipal courts in Wednesday’s study session.

“The counties knew this was coming, and now they’re gonna throw this ‘Hail Mary’ to try and delay this,” she said.

Denver Gazette Reporter Kyla Pearce contributed to this article.