Two People, Same Mistake, Two Different Systems

Everyone makes mistakes. Whether you can afford the best lawyer in town or you’re unhoused and sleeping on the street, anyone can break the law and end up in the system. What happens next depends less on what you did than on what you have.

Trial attorney Daniel Steinhauser has watched this play out from both sides of the courtroom. His read is blunt: the system, as it operates today, punishes poverty.

If You Have Means

Picture someone with money and support behind them. They bond out of jail right away. They have a phone and a calendar, so they know exactly when to show up to court. They hire an attorney who keeps them informed at every step, builds a mitigation package, and shows the judge they’re employed, from a stable family, never in trouble before.

That case resolves fairly and quickly, with little strain on the person going through it.

If You Don’t

Take the same mistake and put it on someone with no money for a lawyer, nowhere permanent to live, no phone in their pocket. They sit in jail because they can’t pay the bond.

If they do get out, they’re not getting court reminders. Nobody’s walking them through the process. They’re more likely to miss a court date, not from disregard for the law, but because they’re focused on feeding themselves, caring for a kid, or just getting through the day.

Miss a court date and it becomes a failure to appear on the record. That follows them. The next time they’re picked up, the DA has a record showing they don’t come to court, that they can’t comply with court orders. Bond gets harder to get. Sometimes it disappears.

A missed step early on compounds into fewer chances later, until the person isn’t getting a chance at all. Just more time in jail.

Where the System Is Starting to Change

Progress has been made, even if there’s more ground to cover.

Sentencing reform has closed some of the gaps that used to make these outcomes worse. The Colorado Supreme Court made a ruling worth noting too: it matched municipal sentences to state sentencing standards, so municipalities can no longer over-criminalize poverty-driven offenses, like petty theft, with mandatory jail time.

A step in the right direction. Not the finish line.

What Krizman Law Is Doing About It

Progress here comes from pushing on every available lever: the legislature, where reform gets written into law, and the Supreme Court, where the right case can set a new standard for everyone after it.

It also comes from something more immediate: hiring a lawyer willing to cut a break for people who can’t pay for one. At Krizman Law, that’s not a footnote to our practice. It’s part of it. People without resources are worth fighting for, just as much as anyone who can afford the fanciest attorney in the room.

The mistake shouldn’t determine the outcome. Neither should the system.

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