Durango Municipal Court Judge Matt Margeson issued a court order on Monday that reinstates court authority for the La Plata County Jail to keep people who are arrested on Durango Municipal Court warrants in custody.
Durango City Attorney Mark Morgan said the new order is intended to get people to show up for their municipal court appearances.
The city previously operated under another administrative order that effectively required immediate release of anyone ignoring court summons for minor municipal charges such as trespassing or public urination, he said.
“There is now a consequence to not appearing in court for a municipal court charge, where prior there was not (any) consequence at all,” he said.
The administrative order says anyone held in La Plata County solely on a Durango Municipal Court warrant shall be brought to the court within 48 hours at 11 a.m. on the next Monday, Wednesday or Friday.
The order also says the jail will notify the municipal court and Durango Police Department by email whenever a defendant with a municipal court warrant enters custody. The email would include the defendant’s case number regarding the warrant, time of arrest and the appropriate date for a hearing.
The order says a defendant will be released on personal recognizance and be required to show up to court at 8 a.m. on the first Monday after they’re released from custody, when the time between an arrest and first court appearance would exceed 48 hours.
Morgan said that is in compliance with new state legislation and only applies to people who aren’t showing up to court.
“When I took the job here, it was immediately expressed to me that there were concerns that there were no consequences for not showing for court on municipal charges,” he said. “People in the community would say, ‘Yeah, the police will write a ticket and then the people just throw it in the garbage and keep doing what they’re doing.’”
Morgan said the order will not necessarily be enforced if someone misses one court appearance, but it remains to be seen what standard is practiced.
“You can’t hold someone over in jail for trespassing or for public urination or anything like that,” he said. “But when they don’t come to court to resolve the charge, then the new (state) law does allow for the court to issue a warrant to have them held and brought to court.”
The new order is a significant change for Durango Municipal Court, which was previously toothless in getting people to appear for hearings, despite the offenses they committed or how much court they’d already missed, Morgan said.
“The whole point is, is we don’t want to have another … unhoused person die in a snowbank from exposure,” he said.
cburney@durangoherald.com
A previous version of this article misspelled Durango Municipal Court Judge Matt Margeson’s last name.
