Communication Rights for Persons in Custody

Legislative Oversight Committee Concerning Colorado Jail Standards. Current law allows a person who is committed, imprisoned, or arrested (person in custody) the right to communicate with an attorney or family member by making a reasonable number of telephone calls or through any other reasonable manner. The bill adds the right for a person in custody to receive a reasonable number of telephone calls or other reasonable communications and to communicate through interactive audiovisual conferencing, if available. The bill adds the attorney's authorized representative to those who a person in custody can communicate with.

Current law allows a person in custody the right to consult with an attorney. The bill clarifies that the person in custody has the right to make and receive private and unrecorded legal telephone calls without cost, and, alternatively, to communicate through private unrecorded interactive audiovisual conferencing. Current law requires all peace officers or individuals who have a person in custody to allow the person in custody to see and consult with an attorney, alone and in private, at the location the person in custody is being held. The bill expands this requirement to allow the attorney for the person in custody to call and consult with the person in custody by telephone through a private and unrecorded legal telephone call without cost or by making and receiving private and unrecorded interactive audiovisual conferencing calls without cost. The bill requires a peace officer or person employed at a place of confinement to provide an attorney or the attorney's authorized representative the ability to initiate communication with a person in custody through telephone calls, interactive audiovisual conferencing, or any other reasonable method of electronic communication, as determined by the jail or correctional facility administration. The communication must be private, unrecorded, and without cost to the confined person and attorney or the attorney's representative, subject to all reasonable administrative and operational procedures.

(Note: Italicized words indicate new material added to the original summary; dashes through words indicate deletions from the original summary.)

(Note: This summary applies to the reengrossed version of this bill as introduced in the second house.)