An ordinance up for consideration in Boulder County demonstrates one of the great perils of attempting to defend yourself without a Denver criminal defense lawyer. Under the new ordinance, about 60 different ordinance violations would have their maximum penalties changed. Namely defendants would no longer face jail time for committing any of these offenses. While the ACLU supports it and it's a good idea, really it points to a larger farce in the system. People who commit these crimes will rarely face jail time in Boulder or in any other county in Colorado. Those maximum penalties are simply a sticker price. And like a sticker price on a car, it's basically used by the prosecutor to negotiate a more favorable outcome for him, and not to have to go to trial.
In many circumstances, even if the defendant does go to trial and is convicted of one of these relatively minor offenses, he will not even go to jail. At that point the judge has sentencing power. Judges know state and county budgets are strained right now and jails are overflowing. Defendants do not know that so they think they will automatically face the harshest penalty if they proceed to trial an are convicted. Denver criminal defense lawyers know that the actual maximum penalty frequently is not even close to the ones in the rule book. Basically if Boulder County passes this reform it would be a good thing. But it would not really make the criminal justice system any more lenient. When is the last time you heard of someone going to jail for littering? Me neither, people aren't even scared enough about littering charges to call me. That said this basically just makes things a little bit simpler and cheaper, but is no significant change. Significant change would be for more significant crimes than littering or public urination.
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