Weekend bonds need attention

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel 
Editorials

November 7, 2025

But he’s run into bureaucratic roadblocks and his best hope now is to persuade lawmakers to pass a new law that will revamp the state’s process for setting bonds on the weekends — and reestablish accountability in the court system.

The conundrum started when the Legislature passed a law in 2021 guaranteeing that Coloradans could receive bond hearings on the weekends. The law sought to eliminate a situation in which a suspect charged with a crime on a Friday would languish in jail until regular bond hearings resumed on Monday.

The law, House Bill 21-1280, dictates that bond setting hearings must occur within 48 hours of “an arrestee’s arrival at a jail or holding center.”

As the Sentinel’s Jace DiCola reported, the Legislature created a weekend bond hearing officer program, providing smaller districts with a magistrate and support staff to virtually conduct weekend hearings.

But these weekend bond hearing officers aren’t conforming to the 21st Judicial District’s philosophy of unattainable bonds for anyone who is a public safety risk. Rubinstein said he has grown increasingly frustrated with low bonds for people who are likely threats to the community.

“I’m trying to get our local judges, who are accountable to our local voters through the election and retention process, to be the ones who set bonds,” Rubinstein said. “If we don’t like the way they’re setting their bonds, we can vote them off the bench. We have no recourse with these bond hearing officers, who are accountable to a chief judge in a different judicial district that never appears on our ballot.”

Mesa County is dependent on the weekend bond hearing program because the district court doesn’t have enough judicial staff to cover weekend proceedings. But if the county could use the state-provided staff with 21st Judicial District judges presiding over weekend bond hearings, the problem would be rectified.

But a request to do that was denied. The 14th District’s bond hearing office said that participating jurisdictions can only receive bond hearing officer staff support if the program’s magistrates conduct the hearings.

“If I can’t get the judges who are presiding over these hearings to set bonds in line with what our judges will do, then it’s my obligation to do what I was elected to do, which is to represent my citizens and find a better solution,” Rubinstein said.

A better solution, at this point, appears to be passing a bill that would explicitly allow judicial districts participating in the bond hearing officer program to access the state-subsidized support staff without the magistrate.

Rubinstein has already engaged four state lawmakers who are interested in sponsoring a bipartisan bill.

If the state’s justice department isn’t receptive to collaborative policy change, then Rubinstein is on the right track in seeking a statutory change to address a safety gap.

That’s going to take some time. The Legislature doesn’t convene again until January, which magnifies the risk potential.

“Is it possible that something very bad could happen between now and when the Legislature addresses this and it gets the governor’s signature? Absolutely.”

Until then, Rubinstein has done a favor to the entire criminal justice system in shedding light on this “risk without accountability” wrinkle in the weekend bond hearing program.