GIST: "On June 30, 2020, 622 voters in the 11th Judicial District set in motion the events that resulted in the dismissal of homicide charges against the alleged murderers of a 10-month-old baby, historic sanctions against the prosecution in the high-profile Suzanne Morphew murder case — and an unprecedented hearing about whether the elected district attorney who oversaw both cases should keep her license to practice law.
At the time, Linda Stanley was a licensed attorney for fewer than eight years. A Pueblo prosecutor for a few years, she never handled a murder before heading into private practice, and then on to the Department of Revenue as a hearing officer. In 2019, she was publicly censured for mishandling a client’s case. Her opponent, Thom LeDoux, was a longtime prosecutor who previously served two terms as the elected DA, as well as president of the Colorado District Attorneys Council.
On that Tuesday in June nearly four years ago, Republicans in a heavily Republican jurisdiction that includes Fremont, Chaffee, Park and Custer Counties voted 52-to-48 for Stanley.
There are two cases that form the basis of the potentially career-ending trial in which Stanley finds herself: the Morphew murder and the murder of a 10-month-old baby just last year. The uber-high profile, “no body” Morphew case was Stanley’s first murder case. The combination of significant evidentiary challenges and intense and persistent media scrutiny are enough to get even the most seasoned elected prosecutors — like John Suthers (R), Stan Garnett (D), Michael Allen (Club Q, Letecia Stauch) and Michael Dougherty (King Soopers) — to tread vigilantly. Add to that mix a level of inexperience that looks less like “it’s my first rodeo,” and more like “what is a rodeo?” and the risk of bad — even unethical — decisions rises to such a level that, well, here we are.
The attorney regulation trial that has been taking place since Jan. 10 is about what Stanley said to the public, what she failed to do regarding the disclosure of evidence, her failure to properly supervise her attorneys, and her conduct “prejudicial to the administration of justice.” Ouch. That is a brutal accusation to have against the minister of justice (the DA).
Stanley’s failures and misjudgments are the product of staggering inexperience.
The two ethical rules that govern an attorney’s pre-trial publicity and extrajudicial — outside of the court — statements are really about the Sixth Amendment. A presumption of innocence and right to a jury trial are of little consequence if the jury pool has already been poisoned by the public statements of the prosecutor who made the accusations. That is not fair and cannot be the path toward truth or justice.
Stanley went beyond these common-sense guardrails when she appeared in multiple media venues to discuss the Morphew case, including Morphew’s invocation of his Fifth Amendment rights and texting a podcaster “we got him” and other such statements. Far worse, in the case of the killed 10-month-old baby, Stanley participated in a locally televised interview — the kind prospective jurors might watch — during which she opined as to the heartlessness and motives of the accused child murderer. Egregious — worse than Alvin Bragg’s pre-trial statements about Trump, and that says something.
It gets worse.
The Morphew case was mismanaged. Because Stanley had never personally prosecuted a murder case before, she was in no position to lead the prosecution team herself. She did not know such cases must have defined roles. Despite bringing onboard well-experienced prosecutors from other jurisdictions, she failed to appoint a lead attorney. Stanley charged Morphew too soon, and likely over the objection of law enforcement. For a case that would undoubtedly be heavily dependent on expert witnesses, whoever was assigned responsibility for them utterly failed. The disclosure of expert witness information to Morphew’s team was so poorly handled, the judge struck (excluded) the vast majority of the prosecution’s expert witnesses — unheard of.
When Stanley testifies this week, the single question she must be asked — the answer to which is dispositive of whether she ran afoul of well-known ethical rules — is a “complete the sentence” kind of question: “As the DA who publicly accused someone of the murder of an infant, I am entitled to tell the public, including potential jurors, about my speculated mindset and motives of the killer, because ____________.” (sic);
It gets much worse.
Two days after the assigned judge struck the first batch of prosecution experts, Stanley sought an investigation of him on the mere suspicion he must have a domestic violence background, as explanation for why his rulings were so favorable toward Morphew. The Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office appropriately told her to pound sand, so she tasked her own chief investigator with interviewing the judge’s ex-wife. WTW? That is crazy thinking, like hiring your lover with limited prosecution experience to lead the Trump prosecution (looking at you, Fani Willis). Where were the veteran prosecutors to scream “the emperor has no clothes!?”
It is unclear whether Suzanne Morphew’s killer will be brought to justice. It is crystal clear the baby-killers will not; their case was dismissed because of Stanley’s “outrageous conduct.” That is the great injustice of what has happened.
Could all of this be prevented at the ballot box? Maybe not. Of the 23 DAs offices on the ballot this November, only six are contested, and only three have primaries to be decided next Tuesday. With so few options, how will voters ensure their prosecutor is the right one?"
The entire commentary can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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