Colorado Mom Spends 27 Days In Jail Because She Couldn't Pay $55

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO – The ACLU of Colorado filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against El Paso County after a woman spent 27 days in jail because she could not pay a $55 fee.

Jasmine Still, a Colorado Springs resident, was arrested on Jan. 11 for a felony narcotics possession charge. A court granted her release but she was kept in jail because she was unable to pay the fee to El Paso County Pretrial Services, according to the ACLU of Colorado.

“The court determined that Ms. Still was not a flight risk or a danger to the community and that she deserved to be free while her case was pending, yet El Paso County held her in jail for nearly a month solely because she could not afford to pay a $55 fee,” said Mark Silverstein, legal director for the ACLU of Colorado. “Jailing someone because of their poverty is not only cruel, it is unconstitutional.”

Still, who was separated from her newborn while in jail, also had child custody proceedings initiated against her, according to the lawsuit.

“Every day I was in jail, I thought there had to have been some kind of mistake. I didn’t think you could jail someone just because they were poor,” said Still in a statement. “I am fighting back not just for me, but for all of the other people who El Paso County has kept in jail because they couldn’t scrape together $55.”

The ACLU of Colorado claims that El Paso County has held more than 300 defendants in jail for more than 3,000 days because they were unable to pay the $55 fee.

“Putting aside the illegality of the County’s practice, it makes no economic sense. Waiving those fees would have cost the County about $16,000, but jailing those defendants who could not pay cost taxpayers more than $266,000," said ACLU of Colorado staff attorney Rebecca Wallace.

--Photo courtesy of ACLU of Colorado