Following months of delays, the Aurora City Council on Monday approved a resolution to shift all domestic violence cases from its municipal courts to county courts.

Aurora domestic violence cases will transition out of the Aurora Municipal Courts system to the county courts on July 1, 2025. All cases filed prior to that will remain in municipal courts, according to the city.

Aurora councilmembers who approved the ordinance said they wanted a concrete start date for the transition so that county courts will have time to financially prepare for reported increases in domestic violence cases.

Councilmember Ruben Medina stood as the lone “no” vote.

During Monday’s study session, city staff said that the number of domestic violence cases has created a need for more municipal resources and increased workloads.

“When you drop the number of domestic violence cases, it changes everything,” city staff told councilmembers.

Aurora’s municipal court has been handling domestic violence since the court began, with reported increases in cases cited as part of the reason for the court’s creation. The rationale was that municipal courts could handle them more quickly than state or county courts, according to a 2021 review of Aurora’s public defense system by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association.

Domestic violence cases make up a large portion of the public defender’s office workload. The city prosecutes about 1,600 domestic violence cases each year, with a good portion of those going to trial with public defender representation, the review said.

Aurora’s public defenders handled over 4,000 cases in total in 2023. With a public defender’s budget of $2.2 million, that comes out to $550 per case.

At a study session on Aug. 26, councilmembers were required to set a transition date in anticipation of Monday’s vote. At the time, the discussion drew disagreements between several councilmembers over the effects of the transition on victims and county courts.

Councilmember Angela Lawson expressed worries about victims and what would happen to them if it takes a long time for their cases to transition to county courts.

“How do we make sure no one is falling through the gaps, because this transition period could be the difference between life and death for a victim,” Lawson asked Judge Shawn Day, who gave a presentation on the proposed ordinance.

To counter Lawson’s point, Mayor Pro Tem Dustin Zvonek — who supports the transition — said the change would only affect future victims, as any cases filed prior to the start date would stay under the current system.

Zvonek and Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky first presented the ordinance to the Public Safety, Courts and Civil Service Policy Committee in May, where it was moved to the City Council for a decision. Councilmembers delayed making a decision on the proposal in June after several councilmembers expressed concerns that cases would not be tried with the same rigor at the county level.

The push to determine if Aurora could save money by contracting out for indigent defense services ended in February when a request for proposals came up empty. The issue arose again in early April, when Jurinsky threatened during a committee meeting to pursue an ordinance that would stop the city from prosecuting domestic violence cases.

Denver Gazette Reporter Kyla Pearce contributed to this article.

Editor’s note: This story originally reported Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky was the lone “no” vote. That was incorrect. Councilmember Ruben Medina cast the only “no” vote against the measure on Monday.