In 2018, Colorado voters amended their state constitution to completely abolish slavery.
Previously, the relevant provision closely mirrored the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which bans slavery and involuntary servitude “except as a punishment.”
As a result of Colorado’s new amendment, that last clause no longer exists in the state constitution. Despite this important step forward, a class action has been filed in state court against the Colorado DOC, alleging that DOC policy and practice still force those incarcerated to work, in open defiance of the will of Colorado voters.
We filed an amicus brief with the Colorado trial court supporting these plaintiffs’ efforts to fully realize the promise of abolition once and for all.
Our brief describes how, immediately following the ratification of the federal Thirteenth Amendment, that provision’s punishment exception was interpreted to allow brutal institutions like convict leasing to spring up in slavery’s wake. We explain how this new workforce incentivized the creation of Black Codes, laws criminalizing broad swathes of conduct that ensnared Black citizens who, after cursory arrest and conviction, would be forced to work. Our brief then situates prison labor today as a continuation of these practices and explains how the Colorado amendment removing the punishment exception from the Colorado Constitution as an enlightened and important step that actually eliminates slavery and involuntary servitude for the first time.
This Court should enforce the clear meaning and intent behind Amendment A: to abolish slavery and involuntary servitude in their entirety, and in doing so, separate Colorado from practices that bear an untenable connection to the history of slavery in the United States.