Youth facing municipal charges in Denver get public defenders, something other municipalities across Colorado want

Denver is the only county in Colorado that now allows public defenders to represent kids from 10 to 18 years old who are facing charges in court.

Before that bill passed, families had two choices, hire private counsel or have that child represent themselves.

Denver City Council passed the bill on a unanimous vote in back in December 2023, but it went into effect earlier this summer.

Now that it has been a little over a month since the new law went into effect, families in Denver are already seeing the benefits of this change.

It is something other counties and cities in the state are also hoping for.

Kids in Denver facing lower level offenses for things such as trespassing, obstruction, possession of alcohol or fights at school now have the right to a public defender in municipal court.

"When I think about myself today, I wish as a young kid, especially a black girl, I would've had someone like me to just have their back," said Nicole Duncan, senior public defender and youth attorney leading this effort.

Their goal is to help kids and teens navigate the court system.

"Kids would come to court, and they would be given a couple options; one of them is diversion," Duncan explained. "However, many kids weren't being offered diversion and weren't eligible. So they ended up in this gap space."

Within that space, kids would have no choice but to represent themselves -- often times their parents not being able to afford private counsel.

Duncan says this change is crucial and life-changing because it's common for this to be a child's first experience with the law and justice system.

"A young person in this space and time is creating their identity, and that's coming from a space and time of how people talk to them, look at them, the way they interact with different systems," Duncan said. "What has been happening is that they've been getting this idea that they're bad."

In a statement to CBS Colorado, Dana Flores with Youth Justice shared a statement on behalf of an attorney who was observing the municipal court docket in Arvada:

"I am in Arvada municipal court, and it is so awful. There needs to be a pro bono effort to get kids counsel in municipal court (like they do in Denver) The municipal court here makes kids submit to a probation screen before the DA can make an offer (judge's standing order) and kids are pleading guilty and getting one year probation over and over again."

"First of all, making 100% of kids who come to municipal court submit to a probation screen without an attorney (or anyone) to advise them is both invasive and unethical. A probation screen is highly to lead a kid into sharing incriminating information. It also assumes that the child is guilty and will inevitably take a plea, before that child has even heard anything about the strength of the prosecutor's evidence."

"Our team did municipal court watching all over the state all of last year, and what we saw was hundreds of children missing school (and their parents missing work) to show up in municipal court and plead guilty because they were too intimidated or too confused about the court process to even consider taking their case to trial. What 12-year-old kid wants to represent herself against an adult prosecutor? We also saw hundreds of kids appear in court who noted that, despite their case being open for months, they had not received any support or been connected to any services by their probation or diversion worker. They were then told by the court that if they would just admit that they had unsuccessfully completed probation and pay a fee of around $40 (on top of any restitution), their case would be closed. No one explained to these kids that, if they ever get in trouble for ANYTHING ever again, the record showing that they "unsuccessfully completed probation" will mean a harsher sentence."

Duncan hopes the change in Denver will trigger other counties and cities to enact a similar law.

"If you really want to have a preventive measure, find when does that school-to-prison pipeline start," Duncan said. "And the fact that kids have been doing municipal court without defense attorneys makes me wonder if it is starting there?"

As part of the program, the office also has a youth peer support specialist, that looks to help youth navigate the process.

Just this year, youth in Denver received more than 200 citations.