Lynell Brunner wanted to run.
A Grand Junction Municipal Court judge had just sentenced him to a year in jail for theft. Brunner couldn’t believe it, so he asked the judge to repeat herself.
One year.
Then he took off running out of the courtroom.
“I felt scared,” Brunner said, recounting the April hearing to a reporter during an interview from jail. “I felt lonely.”
Brunner has an IQ of 79 and suffers from a host of mental health issues, including anxiety and depression. When he stood before the judge that day in municipal court, he did so without an attorney.
Brunner’s case represents the norm in Grand Junction, where defendant after defendant appears before the court for critical proceedings without legal counsel — in violation of their constitutional rights, experts say.
These individuals are in custody and facing the possibility of jail, meaning they’re entitled by Colorado law to an attorney. Instead, poor and unhoused people are pleading guilty and being sentenced without legal representation, The Denver Post found.
The newspaper reviewed audio recordings from seven days of August in-custody dockets in the Grand Junction courtroom. Not a single defendant during those hearings appeared with a lawyer present, despite all being entitled to one.
“It seems pretty clear there are very severe violations of individuals’ constitutional rights on a regular basis in that courtroom,” said Eve Brensike Primus, a law professor at the University of Michigan who specializes in indigent defense.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado and the Colorado Freedom Fund, an organization that helps individuals who cannot pay bail, said in a letter last month to Grand Junction leaders that it is likely that all or the vast majority of people who appeared before Judge Tammy Eret, the city’s presiding and only municipal judge, were convicted and sentenced unconstitutionally.
The civil rights groups called for the city to release all individuals jailed on municipal charges, review all sentences imposed by Eret, quash all warrants issued by the judge and end all municipal arrests until constitutional rights are fully restored.
“Judge Eret’s violations of the law are serious, persistent and cause substantial harm to community members,” the organizations wrote in the letter.
Eret, through a city spokesperson, declined to be interviewed for this story. Grand Junction’s city attorney, in a reply letter sent this week to the ACLU and Colorado Freedom Fund, defended the court’s practices, arguing defendants are advised of their rights before every hearing and voluntarily waive their right to counsel.
John Shaver, the city attorney, recommended that the city object to the demands of the civil rights groups.
“We found no objective basis for the allegations made in the letter and that the actual practices of Judge Eret and the court are much different than alleged,” he wrote.
Razor wire tops a perimeter fence at the Mesa County Detention Center at 215 Rice St. in Grand Junction, seen here on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (Photo by William Woody/Special to The Denver Post)
Left to their own devices
In 2016, Colorado lawmakers passed HB16-1309, dubbed the “Right to Counsel in Municipal Court” bill.
State law already afforded attorneys for initial appearances to in-custody individuals facing state charges that included a possible jail sentence. The new legislation would provide the same access to counsel for those under similar circumstances in lower-level municipal court.
The law accounts for the fact that defendants too poor to bail themselves out of jail also cannot afford to retain an attorney.
“Impoverished municipal inmates frequently plead guilty just to get out of jail,” the ACLU wrote at the time. “Appearing alone before a judge, municipal defendants face a terrible choice: ask for counsel and return to jail until your next court appearance when counsel will be present OR plead ‘guilty’ and get out of jail quicker. Understandably, most municipal defendants simply plead guilty at first appearance to secure their fast release from jail, even those who are innocent and have strong legal defenses.”
The law, advocates said, would bring Colorado’s municipal courts in line with constitutional standards, which hold that first appearances and plea hearings are “critical stages” of a legal proceeding.
But in Grand Junction, defendants are routinely left to their own devices to navigate the complex judicial system.
The courtroom audio recordings obtained by the Colorado Freedom Fund and reviewed by The Post showed that, in many instances, the judge never informed people that they had the right to an attorney.
When individuals did ask for lawyers, Eret told them she doesn’t have public defenders in her courtroom and that people would have to apply for free, court-appointed counsel. They would then have to return to court at a later date.
Colorado law holds that individuals who are in custody are entitled to an attorney at their first appearance — not that they have to apply for one at that hearing. Colorado provides public defenders for state courts, but, outside of Denver and Aurora, no other municipalities have their own public defender’s offices. Instead, cities contract with private attorneys to represent indigent clients. These attorneys are supposed to be there for initial appearances.
Grand Junction officials declined to say how much the city spends annually on its court-appointed attorneys.
In the courtroom recordings, Eret’s comments often seemed to dissuade individuals, who would end up pleading guilty, getting out of jail on credit for time served.
The judge, in several cases, appeared to lead on defendants who were on the fence about whether they were entitled to legal representation.
After one woman asked to speak to an attorney, Eret told her that she wasn’t going to give her jail time, just probation.
“OK, great,” the woman replied. “I didn’t know if it was a felony or misdemeanor.” (City ordinance violations are their own, lesser offenses, and fall under neither type of criminal charge.)
She ended up pleading guilty.
Defendants routinely displayed little knowledge for how the court system works.
“I don’t even know what it’s about,” one man told Eret. “I have no idea about this charge at all.”
The man asked if he needed to get a lawyer.
“That’s up to you,” Eret said.
Another woman told the judge she wasn’t even aware she had a charge, but that, “I’ll do whatever it takes to get it taken care of.”
“Perfect,” Eret responded.
Shaver, the Grand Junction city attorney, wrote in his letter to the ACLU and Colorado Freedom Fund that “there were no obvious examples of the court obtaining coerced, uncounseled guilty pleas” from in-custody defendants. He added that the court’s advisement practices are “practical, lawful and consistent.”
“Telling a defendant that credit for time served is possible is not coercive,” he wrote.
Multiple people appeared to come before the court in the throes of mental health crises, calling into question whether they would be deemed competent in another courtroom. Municipal courts do not handle competency cases; those are left for state courts. Under state law, if a person is deemed incompetent to stand trial, their municipal case is supposed to be dismissed.
One woman, during an Aug. 6 hearing, told the judge that she was dying of cancer and is also royalty in England. The woman said she wanted to do “whatever gets me out into the fresh air faster.”
“So if you want to plead guilty or no contest to the cases today,” Eret said, “we can take care of them.”
The judge then asked the woman if she understood what was going on.
“Mostly,” she said. “I think I do.”
Eret gave the woman credit for time served, meaning she would be released after the hearing.
Another man, charged with trespassing, appeared before the judge ranting incoherently.
“If you wanted to… you could just take care of this case today, we could give you credit for time served, and you’d be done,” Eret said.
Shaver said there were no obvious examples of the court entering convictions for defendants lacking competency. The judge, he said, looks for any “red flags” regarding a person’s ability to understand the court process. If they do, she immediately appoints defense counsel.
In Eret’s courtroom, though, the judge serves as the only access point for individuals facing the complex criminal legal system.
“That’s an inappropriate role for a judge to be playing,” said Rebecca Wallace, policy director for the Colorado Freedom Fund. “Under state law, they have the right to have an attorney right then and there to avoid these types of coercive interactions.”
David Schroeder inside a holding room in the Mesa County Detention Center in Grand Junction on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (Photo by William Woody/Special to The Denver Post)
“She treated me like I didn’t have any rights”
David Schroeder came before Eret in December 2023 after being arrested on charges alleging he stole a dog harness and some food from Walmart.
“I turned to stealing because it was a way to keep my head above water,” Schroeder said in an interview from jail.
The 49-year-old’s life started to spiral after the state took his 10-year-old son and newborn daughter away following heavy drug use.
“That was the worst thing I ever went through in my life,” he said.
Throughout his criminal proceeding in Grand Junction Municipal Court, Schroeder didn’t have an attorney. He ended up pleading guilty to two petty theft charges. Eret sentenced him to nine months in jail.
Schroeder said he didn’t know what the municipal court process looked like and had no idea how he was supposed to get a lawyer.
“She should have told me exactly what my rights were and not infringed on them,” he said. “She treated me like I didn’t have any rights.”
The U.S. Constitution and Colorado law are crystal clear, Primus, the University of Michigan professor, said: If an individual is facing any form of incarceration and they’re too poor to hire their own lawyer, they’re entitled to court-appointed counsel.
“It’s patently obvious these are constitutional violations,” she said of Grand Junction. “It’s not close at all.”
While it’s difficult to know what’s going on in Colorado’s more than 200 municipal courts, Wallace said she’s not aware of any other city court in the state that systematically, as a matter of policy, fails to provide counsel to in-custody defendants.
“We haven’t heard of anything so egregious,” she said.
State Rep. Matt Soper, a Delta Republican whose district covers Grand Junction, called the situation “appalling.”
“We expect judges and other government officials to follow the laws that we as legislators pass for the people of Colorado,” he said. “At the municipal level, if someone is not following a law, especially a judge, it means the ability to give any credence or weight to rule of law has been completely eroded and undermined.”
Convictions carry consequences
It’s not surprising that most defendants would rather take a guilty plea and get out of jail than fight for their rights, experts say.
But criminal convictions carry a host of other consequences. They might impact your immigration status or cause you to lose your job. Your driver’s license and food stamps could be revoked. Child custody cases could be impacted.
“There’s no end to the number of ways a criminal conviction can affect a person’s life,” Primus said.
The U.S. Supreme Court has described counsel as a watershed criminal procedural right — a right that serves as a gateway to all other rights.
“Of all the rights that an accused person has, the right to be represented by counsel is by far the most pervasive, for it affects his ability to assert any other rights he may have,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in a 1984 Supreme Court case.
The National Right to Counsel Committee called legal representation “a fundamental precept of American justice. It helps to define who we are as a free people and distinguishes this country from totalitarian regimes, where lawyers are not always independent of the state and individuals can be imprisoned by an all-powerful and repressive state.”
People often don’t know if they’re innocent or guilty of a crime, experts say. If you don’t have a lawyer, you don’t know if your rights are being violated. And if you’re in custody, you have nobody to investigate the facts of your case from the outside.
Lawyers are also crucial during pleas and sentencing, Primus said, where a judge has wide leeway on a range of punishment options.
“If you don’t give people any help, they’re kind of out at sea,” she said.
It’s hardly just an issue in Grand Junction’s city court.
David Schroeder inside a holding room within the Mesa County Detention Center in Grand Junction on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (Photo by William Woody/Special to The Denver Post)
Between 25% and 68% of defendants in misdemeanor cases nationwide do not have lawyers, according to a 2018 Hofstra Law Review article.
The American Bar Association recognizes the responsibility of the judge in “safeguarding both the rights of the accused and the interests of the public in the administration of criminal justice.”
Failure to provide counsel also has a disproportionate impact on people of color. One report found Black males under age 16 are more than 17 times as likely to be arrested for a misdemeanor than white male students, while Hispanic males of the same age are six times as likely to be arrested for that class of crime.
The situation in Grand Junction underscores the lack of oversight of Colorado’s more than 200 municipal courts, which are governed individually by each city and operate independently from the Colorado Judicial Department.
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With few people watching, municipal courts “are essentially fiefdoms of municipal judges,” Wallace said. “Municipal courts are able to operate in a shroud of secrecy, where violations go unnoticed and unchecked.”
In July, a Denver Post investigation found judges in Pueblo’s municipal court were using contempt of court charges to inflate jail sentences for low-level, nonviolent offenses — a practice that had no precedent in major Colorado cities and was likely unconstitutional, experts said.
The ACLU filed three petitions in Pueblo District Court earlier this month, arguing three Pueblo individuals were being detained illegally as a result of this practice and should be freed immediately. A judge agreed to release all three while she waits to rule on the larger issue.
Colorado’s municipal courts have also, in recent years, become the state’s most punitive forum for minor crimes, with defendants often facing longer sentences if convicted in city court than they would for the same charges in state court.
Meanwhile, Brunner, the defendant who ran out his Grand Junction courtroom, was sentenced to three years in jail stemming from three separate theft convictions — double the time he got for a felony in state court.
He’s not scheduled to be released until August 2026.
Schroeder has been in jail for more than five months and feels pessimistic about his chances of survival once he gets out.
“(The judge) really harmed a lot of people in this city,” he said. “She’s really caused a lot of heartache and she seems to be getting away with it.”
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