Violence in the home. Two legal jurisdictions. Not enough money.
All of those dynamics came together over a conference room table in Aurora city hall this week as its leaders rebuffed a plea from Arapahoe County officials to delay for another year — to July 1, 2026 — the filing of the city’s domestic violence cases in county court.
Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky was adamant that it was time to shift the city’s approximately 1,200 annual domestic violence cases in Arapahoe County from municipal court to the 18th Judicial District, which adjudicates crime in the county, starting this July.
“They have been given ample notice on this, ample time,” she said during a study session this week, noting that the city had already granted Arapahoe County a six-month extension. “There is zero wiggle room from me.”
That’s not what Amy Padden, the district attorney for the newly reconfigured 18th Judicial District, wanted to hear. It’s one of three districts set to take on Aurora’s cases in the counties that take in parts of the city.
She projects a doubling of the number of misdemeanor domestic violence cases the district will have to handle annually once it has Aurora’s share on its docket — an influx that will result in a 17% increase in its overall caseload.
To make matters worse, lawmakers on the Colorado legislature’s Joint Budget Committee recently told county officials that there would be no additional money in the coming year to pay for the district’s public defenders or probation department, which is at less than 80% strength, staff-wise.
The 18th Judicial District is also down a county judge — another position that won’t see funding — as the legislature has tried to cobble together a budget and close a projected $1.2 billion deficit in the next fiscal year.
“It’s going to be a bit of a struggle for a while,” Padden said.
Assessment of the situation was bleaker in a memo Arapahoe County officials sent to the Aurora council as part of their effort to win more time from the city. It describes domestic violence cases as “emotionally complex and layered with significant impacts to families, particularly when children are involved, or the defendant has been the primary economic provider.”
“We anticipate case resolution times could be extended by as much as three to four months, with some cases even being dismissed outright if speedy trial deadlines cannot be met in light of the lack of judicial resources,” the memo reads.
Councilwoman Crystal Murillo backed the granting of another year so Arapahoe County could prepare for Aurora’s domestic violence caseload.
“They do not have the additional resources they were counting on, so we are abdicating our responsibility on domestic violence and leaving it up to another jurisdiction to handle our cases,” she told The Denver Post. “I think it’s going to be harmful to our residents.”
With their unique complexities, City Attorney Pete Schulte said, domestic violence cases take four times as long to adjudicate than other misdemeanor violations. In the meantime, Aurora is facing its own fiscal challenges — to the tune of a projected $11.5 million general fund deficit in 2026.
“Welcome to our world — that’s what we’re having to pay for,” Schulte said.
State laws weigh on Aurora
Denver, Westminster and Lakewood are the only other Colorado cities that still prosecute misdemeanor domestic violence cases in municipal court. All felony cases involving domestic violence in Colorado are handled by the state’s district court system.
Aurora has been overseeing its own misdemeanor domestic violence caseload for about 30 years, Schulte said, at a cost of $2 million to $3 million annually. In total, the city deals without around 1,800 domestic violence cases a year.
While the bulk of those occur in Arapahoe County, another 600 come out of Adams and Douglas counties.
The City Council began to reexamine the situation, Schulte said, following passage last year of House Bill 1437. That law, which takes effect on July 1, will halt lower-cost fixed or flat-fee payments to attorneys representing indigent clients by municipalities that prosecute these types of cases.
Cities must, according to the law, “use the same payment structure and rates that are paid by the state of Colorado.” The rationale was to ensure that lawyers are not disincentivized to work on a client’s case because a flat fee, rather than an hourly one, might not adequately compensate them for their time.
That law, in tandem with another bill moving through the Democratic-dominated legislature this spring, put the situation in a new prism for Aurora’s elected leaders, Schulte said. The pending bill would stop local governments from imposing a harsher sentence or a larger fine than would be imposed by district or county judges for a comparable crime.
“At some point, when it becomes too expensive because of what the legislature is doing, the council has to make a decision about what is in the best interests of the citizens of Aurora,” he said. “We don’t have any obligation to be an extension of county court.”
Aurora Councilwoman Francoise Bergan, who voted to deny Arapahoe County an extension, said state government ultimately “holds the responsibility to address and fund the essential needs of its residents, particularly in areas concerning public safety and justice.”
“Domestic violence cases are critical and should never be dismissed due to a lack of resources,” she said. “It is imperative that the necessary funding and support systems be prioritized to ensure these cases are properly adjudicated.”
Jurinsky said at Monday’s study session that Arapahoe County should be able to cover the costs of Aurora’s domestic violence cases now that its voters have lifted revenue collection limitations under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
“They are going to be flush with cash,” she said.
Passage of Question 1A on Nov. 5 allows the county to keep and spend tax revenue beyond what TABOR normally permits. But Commissioner Jessica Campbell says it’s not that simple.
“We made a commitment to our voters where these 1A dollars would go to,” she said. “And this transfer (of domestic violence cases) was not part of that.”
The extra money is dedicated to roads and pedestrian safety, housing and mental health programs. Arapahoe County, Campbell said, is facing a backlog of unaddressed infrastructure and maintenance needs that add up to more than $300 million.
But the county, she said, will “muscle through” the challenge of managing the additional cases that will come from Aurora.
“Our primary concern is being able to provide justice to the victims of domestic violence,” Campbell said. “We will do our best, but not pushing back the deadline will make it harder.”
Adams County is ready, DA says
Padden, the district attorney, said she didn’t anticipate domestic violence cases being dismissed outright in Arapahoe County once Aurora’s caseload comes over. For one, she said, the city is only filing new cases in county court as of July 1 — all existing cases before then will continue to be adjudicated in Aurora’s court.
“We will have some time to ramp up,” she said.
But the challenges with constrained resources are very real, she said.
“If a public defender is overworked, it may take them longer to bring their cases to trial,” Padden said. “Yet a crowded docket is not an excuse to not have a speedy trial.”
For almost the other third of Aurora’s domestic violence cases, Adams County District Attorney Brian Mason said his office of 90 prosecutors is ready. (Douglas County accounts for a tiny proportion of Aurora’s cases.)
“The city of Aurora gave us notice, and we’ve been preparing ever since,” said Mason, who is in charge of prosecutions in Colorado’s 17th Judicial District. “We are committed to taking care of every domestic violence victim and handling these cases in a responsible way.”
While domestic violence deaths in Colorado dropped significantly in 2023 after back-to-back years of record-high fatalities during the pandemic — 58 deaths in 2023, compared to 94 in 2022 — partner-on-partner abuse continues to be a serious problem, according to a Colorado Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board report issued last fall.
“Though this drop is very encouraging, it does not suggest,” the report stated, that domestic violence or related fatalities are less of an problem in Colorado.
One only needs to look next door at Denver. While homicides and non-fatal shootings dropped last year from the year before, domestic violence assaults surged 44% in 2024 compared to 2023, police data shows.
As to whether the bad behavior that leads to domestic violence incidents in the first place will ever subside enough to give judicial systems in Colorado a chance to breathe, Mason was not sanguine.
“Unfortunately, domestic violence will always be a problem,” he said. “The human condition is that some people don’t have the skill set to resolve their disputes without turning to violence.”
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