A Pueblo man has been unlawfully detained for community contempt of court, according to the ACLU

A Pueblo man was unlawfully detained earlier this year for the community’s disregard of court rulings and should be released immediately, the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado claimed Wednesday in a court filing calling for the man’s release.

Defendant Dean Lopez received 575 days in jail for petty offenses and missed court dates, and the city of Pueblo denied him basic rights that should be afforded to all criminal defendants, the ACLU alleged in Pueblo District Court.

RELATED: How Pueblo uses contempt of court as a weapon to extend prison sentences for minor crimes

The petition says Lopez never received charging documents outlining the basis for his defiance of the charges, which violate both the U.S. and Colorado constitutions.

“A criminal charge cannot emerge from a court clerk’s note in a docket or a judge’s handwritten note at the end of a proposed plea agreement,” the petition states. “The 575-day prison sentence Mr. Lopez is currently serving solely for missed court dates and convictions the court lacked jurisdiction to impose cannot stand.”

The lawsuit comes three months after a Denver Post investigation found that Pueblo Parish judges disregarded the court’s charges to increase prison sentences for defendants facing low-level, non-violent charges. Judges sent people to months-long jail terms in cases that in other Colorado courts are punishable by a day or two in jail, if at all, The Post found.

The practice was likely unconstitutional, experts told The Post, and had no precedent in other major Colorado cities. The newspaper found that Pueblo Municipal Court judges routinely punished people for failing to show up for their court hearings, resulting in increasing prison sentences and thousands of dollars in fines, and that the practice particularly affected the homeless residents of the city.

Lopez, 55, was unhoused at the time of his sentencing. According to the files, he missed his father’s funeral while incarcerated due to a series of trespassing offenses and a litany of missed court dates.

Each time Lopez missed a hearing, the court issued a warrant for his arrest and “charged” him with contempt of court, a misdemeanor in Pueblo punishable by up to 364 days in jail. These charges were mentioned in six types of documents, including arrest warrants, a plea agreement, dismissal sheets and pretrial packets.

However, the court never filed a criminal complaint on a municipal contempt charge, the ACLU claims. Defendants are constitutionally entitled to these documents so they can prepare a defense for their alleged crimes.

Only 90 days of Lopez’s 575-day sentence were due to the trespassing charge, and he has already served three times that amount in prison, the petition says. Lopez’s plea included 31 counts of contempt of community for missing court dates, which resulted in a 240-day jail sentence.

The 90 days for trespassing were to be served concurrently, and the remaining 335 days in prison were for contempt convictions, which would have been suspended if he successfully completed probation but would have been imposed if he did not successfully complete probation would have.

“Almost all of Mr. Lopez’s conviction arose from prosecutions initiated by the clerk or from comments made by the court without the existence of charging documents sufficient to invoke the jurisdiction of the sentencing court,” the petition states.

Lopez is therefore “entitled to immediate release from custody on his contempt convictions, which are invalid,” the ACLU states.

RELATED: How Colorado’s municipal courts became the state’s sentencing forum for petty crimes

The civil rights organization filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in Pueblo District Court, asking the court to consider whether a person is unlawfully detained.

“Mr. “Lopez has lost not only his freedom, but also the irreplaceable experiences of attending his father’s funeral and watching his granddaughter grow up because of the unlawful punishment imposed by the city of Pueblo,” said Emma Mclean-Riggs, ACLU senior attorney “We call on the court to recognize that Mr. Lopez’s conviction is unlawful and unreasonable and to release him immediately. We will not tolerate the ongoing civil rights violations of Pueblo’s most vulnerable residents.”

The Post couldn’t find any other major Colorado city in its July investigation that exercised contempt like Pueblo, where more than 1,700 contempt charges were filed over an eight-month period.

Municipal judges issued no such citations during this period in Arvada, Boulder, Broomfield, Colorado Springs, Centennial, Greeley, Fort Collins and Lakewood. There were 12 contempt charges in Aurora during that period, and no more than 27 in Denver.

In other courts, judges typically issue arrest warrants for defendants who fail to appear in court, and those defendants are then detained until their next court date to ensure they appear. In such cases, failure to appear charges are compensatory and non-punitive and typically do not carry prison sentences of their own.

Pueblo City Attorney Carla Sikes, who previously served as presiding municipal court judge for eight years until becoming city attorney in March, defended the city’s disregard for court practices at a September City Council meeting. She said the practice was necessary and stressed that contempt of court rulings had been agreed upon between prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges when defendants had entered into plea agreements.

Municipal courts have become Colorado’s primary sentencing forum for low-level crimes in recent years, and the Post’s investigation highlights the lack of oversight across the state’s more than 200 municipal courts. Civil rights experts say city courts operate individually and with little oversight.