Arash Jahanian

Four Days after Bond

Saul Cisneros’s daughter paid the $2,000 bond a court had set. The El Paso County jail kept him anyway—first for days, then months—because immigration authorities sent forms no judge had signed. Arash Jahanian’s litigation turned the jailhouse hold into a statewide rule about who has power to make a new arrest.

Cisneros entered the county jail in November 2017 on two misdemeanor charges. Four days later, his daughter posted bond. State process no longer authorized his confinement. The sheriff’s office nevertheless placed him on an immigration hold after receiving an ICE detainer and administrative warrant.

Those documents were requests issued within the executive branch. They were not warrants approved by a judge. The central legal question was therefore concrete: when the state case no longer justified custody, who had lawfully ordered Cisneros’s continued imprisonment?

Jahanian and Mark Silverstein filed a state-court class action for Cisneros, another named detainee, and future prisoners held on the same basis. Holland & Hart lawyers Stephen Masciocchi and colleagues served as cooperating counsel.

A Fax Cannot Make a New Arrest

The sheriff argued that federal paperwork had transformed the prisoners into ICE detainees. The plaintiffs answered that custody did not change by fax or email. A local jail that kept a person after bond made a new arrest and needed lawful state authority to do so.

The court entered a preliminary injunction in March 2018 and later certified a class. Cisneros’s daughter posted bond again. He left custody almost four months after the initial detention.

In December 2018, the court entered summary judgment and a permanent injunction. It held that the sheriff had a clear duty to release people who had posted bond, completed a sentence, or otherwise resolved the state basis for custody. The practice violated three provisions of the Colorado Constitution.

Nearly 200 people had been subjected to ICE holds in the El Paso County jail during 2017, and more than forty-six could be labeled as ICE holds on an ordinary day.

Colorado’s Civil-Detainer Statute

Colorado enacted House Bill 19-1124 in May 2019 while the sheriff’s appeal was pending. The statute prohibited state and local officers from arresting or detaining a person solely on a civil immigration detainer. It also limited probation officers’ disclosure of personal information to federal immigration authorities.

The court of appeals dismissed the injunction appeal as moot because the statute had codified the central release rule. The statute adopted the same rule enforced by the injunction: a civil immigration detainer alone did not authorize local criminal custody.

Cisneros’s compensation claim proceeded separately. Sheriff Bill Elder asserted governmental immunity against false imprisonment. In March 2022, the Colorado Supreme Court unanimously held that the statutory waiver for jail operations extended beyond negligent conduct and could encompass an intentional tort such as false imprisonment.

El Paso County later made a formal $25,000 offer of judgment. Cisneros accepted, and the federal court entered judgment in his favor on March 16, 2023. The accepted offer produced an entered judgment following the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling rather than a confidential settlement.

Eight Shots in a Denver Alley

Before dawn on January 26, 2015, Denver officers approached a stolen Honda in a narrow alley. Jessica Hernandez, seventeen, sat behind the wheel with four other teenagers. The windows were fogged. The car moved between a patrol vehicle and a fence.

Officers Gabriel Jordan and Daniel Greene said Hernandez accelerated toward Jordan. Teenagers in the car disputed that account. Jordan pushed from the driver’s side with one hand while firing with the other. Greene also fired. Eight bullets struck the car; three struck Hernandez. Jordan was not hit.

Hernandez was unarmed and preparing to enlist in the Coast Guard. She died from the gunfire. The department found no violation of the policy then in force. The family’s civil counsel focused on the physical sequence, the moving-vehicle rule, and what the City would do before and after the next shooting.

A Resolution before the Complaint

Jahanian represented Hernandez’s parents with the Rathod | Mohamedbhai team. The family gave formal notice but resolved the matter before filing a civil complaint.

Denver agreed in April 2017 to pay $999,999. The resolution also established terms addressing police training, community participation, and public information.

The City acknowledged that Hernandez’s death had prompted revision of the rule governing gunfire at moving vehicles. Under the revised policy, officers could not shoot when the vehicle itself presented the only deadly threat. Denver agreed to train officers on that rule. The family could designate a representative to participate in broader use-of-force policy review.

The agreement also provided for a community meeting with Latino and LGBTQ residents, assistance if the family created a nonprofit in Hernandez’s memory, and limits on proactively releasing unrelated background information about people shot by police.

Two Thousand Two Hundred People Waiting for a Cure

Chronic hepatitis C can progress to cirrhosis, liver failure, cancer, and death. By 2017, direct-acting antiviral medications could cure more than ninety percent of patients. Colorado’s prison system had more than 2,200 people living with the disease, yet treatment remained restricted by disease stage, substance-use requirements, and disciplinary history.

Jahanian joined Mark Silverstein, Sara Neel, Christopher Beall, and a Fox Rothschild team in a federal class action against the Colorado Department of Corrections. The plaintiffs argued that prison custody made the State responsible for providing the community standard of medical care.

The settlement finalized in September 2018 committed $41 million across two fiscal years—$20.5 million each year—to treat all prisoners with chronic hepatitis C. It removed drug or alcohol treatment as a prerequisite and barred denial based on disciplinary violations.

Quarterly reports through July 2020 tracked the infected population and treatment. The agreement also provided $175,000 in fees and costs after more than 1,200 hours of legal work. The central remedy was medical: eligibility for a cure no longer depended on waiting for the disease to become more advanced.

K-9 Searches at the Suites

Alice Boatner, Billy Sparling, Michael Kealy, and Christine Herrera lived at the Suites, a public housing complex in Longmont. In May 2017, police officers and a drug-detecting dog entered their homes at the invitation of the housing authority.

The residents had not consented to police searches and received no opportunity to refuse. A lease provision allowing ordinary maintenance inspections did not authorize law enforcement to enter with a K-9 to look for criminal evidence.

Jahanian worked with Rebecca Wallace, Mark Silverstein, and cooperating counsel John Culver. The matter resolved before a complaint was filed, first with the City and later with the Longmont Housing Authority.

Longmont Search Settlements and Public Corrections

The City paid $210,000 and agreed to release an independent investigation, correct earlier statements suggesting consent, hold a public forum, offer restorative-justice participation, accept ACLU input on search policies, and retrain officers on voluntary consent.

The Housing Authority later paid $170,000. It acknowledged the privacy rights of people in public housing, agreed that the residents had not consented, issued apologies, limited future statements minimizing the searches, and invited policy input.

The combined $380,000 represented two settlements with two public institutions. The nonmonetary terms corrected the official description of what happened and established that public housing did not carry a reduced Fourth Amendment.

A Muffin, a Hoodie, and Forty Thousand Dollars

Omar Hassan finished a night shift and stopped at a Caribou Coffee in Aurora. He bought a muffin and sat at a table wearing a hoodie, sweatpants, and work boots. Two officers stood over him with their hands on their guns and ordered him to leave.

The coffee shop had received no complaint and had not asked police to remove him. Hassan alleged that an officer told him, “Your kind of business is not welcome here.”

Jahanian, Wallace, and Silverstein filed a racial-profiling action. Aurora paid Hassan $40,000. A separate $35,000 settlement resolved Dwight Crews’s different warrantless-entry and excessive-force case. The City announced both payments together, but the clients, incidents, injuries, and recoveries remained distinct.

The Median as a Place to Speak

Greeley prohibited pedestrians from remaining on any median longer than necessary to cross. Three plaintiffs used medians to request money for food and shelter. A fourth wanted to display political messages to passing motorists.

Jahanian, Silverstein, Rebecca Wallace, Dan Williams, Colleen Koch, and cooperating counsel challenged the ordinance in September 2019. The City stopped enforcement immediately and did not oppose preliminary relief. The federal court entered a stipulated injunction two days after filing. Greeley repealed the ban the next month.

Jahanian described solicitation as protected speech and a means of survival for the plaintiffs.

Twenty Lockers and a Religious Practice

The Fort Collins Mennonite Fellowship sought to place up to twenty outdoor lockers in its parking lot so people experiencing homelessness could store documents, clothing, medication, and other belongings. The congregation understood that service as an exercise of faith.

Local land-use conditions made the program difficult to operate, including a requirement for constant onsite supervision. Jahanian and Silverstein represented the Fellowship with Brian Connolly, Thomas Macdonald, David Brewster, Andrew Peters, and other cooperating counsel.

The federal action invoked the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. The settlement allowed twenty-four-hour locker access, required security cameras, and replaced constant onsite staffing with availability of a Fellowship representative by telephone.

Legal Aid after Impact Litigation

Jahanian joined Colorado Legal Services in April 2024 and serves as Advocacy Director for Denver. His prior work included civil-rights litigation at Rathod | Mohamedbhai, ACLU litigation and policy, immigrant and criminal-system advocacy at Meyer Law Office, and senior counsel service at Denver Public Schools focused on the district’s consent decree for English-language learners and their families.

The Denver office handles housing, safety, income, health, consumer, and public-benefit matters for people who cannot afford counsel.