Ethics
District attorney ‘paid little attention to the five-alarm fire’ in high-profile case and should be disbarred, panel says
A Colorado district attorney should be disbarred mostly for her “absence at the helm” in a high-profile murder case in which prosecutors failed to turn over sufficient expert witness information to the defense, leading to the exclusion of experts, according to a Colorado disciplinary hearing board. (Image from Shutterstock)
A Colorado district attorney should be disbarred mostly for her “absence at the helm” in a high-profile murder case in which prosecutors failed to turn over sufficient expert witness information to the defense, leading to the exclusion of experts, according to a Colorado disciplinary hearing board.
In a Sept. 10 decision, the board recommended disbarment for District Attorney Linda Stanley of the 11th Judicial District in Colorado. She has the option of appealing the order.
The Denver Post (via the Legal Profession Blog), the Associated Press and Law360 have coverage of the decision.
The disciplinary board said Stanley failed to adequately oversee the murder prosecution of Barry Morphew. She also initiated a baseless domestic-abuse investigation of the presiding judge who barred many of the prosecution’s expert witnesses.
Morphew’s wife disappeared on a bike ride in May 2020. The prosecution dropped the charges in April 2022, nine days before the scheduled start of the trial. Morphew has said he is innocent.
Stanley sought the probe of the judge after hearing that his ex-wife was an advocate of for domestic-abuse victims. The ex-wife told Stanley’s investigator that she had never been abused.
Stanley also made improper remarks to the media in the Morphew case and a fatal child-abuse case, the board found. Stanley had said she thought that her remarks in the second case were off the record.
Stanley’s “absence at the helm” in the Morphew case ended with it “running aground,” the board said in an opinion by Presiding Disciplinary Judge Bryon M. Large.
Discovery issues included a massive amount of information that the sheriff’s office delivered on a hard drive to prosecutors without a useful organization. A hard drive of the information was hand delivered to the defense. But bandwidth issues made integrating the material into an e-discovery platform difficult.
In addition, the lead prosecutor on the case said he felt taxed and overwhelmed. He resigned in October 2021. A replacement agreed to work only part time and had trouble accessing discovery information online.
Stanley “was aware, from the time the sheriff’s office delivered to her office a ten-terabyte hard drive of information, that the sheer volume of disorganized, unlabeled discovery promised to pose a problem for the prosecution,” the hearing board said. “The prosecution never truly had a command of the universe of discovery.”
After the lead prosecutor resigned, Stanley failed to designate a new lead counsel, creating confusion.
“Lawyers pointed us to no one—or worse still, to one another—when asked to identify lead counsel,” the hearing board said.
Stanley also failed her team when it became apparent that it was struggling to compile expert-witness information before a deadline and when she learned that the defense was seeking to exclude expert testimony because of failings, according to the hearing board.
Although Stanley “was aware of these very serious developments, she paid little attention to the five-alarm fire and instead relied on [two other lawyers] to extinguish the blaze,” the hearing board majority said.
Stanley’s “failure to ensure her team interviewed experts, reviewed expert reports and statements, and disclosed all facts and data underlying those statements represents an abdication of her supervisory duties,” the majority concluded.
Stanley’s “failure to rise to the moment when so much was at stake” cannot be overlooked, the majority said.
A dissenting panel member, Sherry A. Caloia, would have imposed a suspension of two and a half years rather than disbarment. She expressed concern that the Morphew case “has undergone an extensive amount of Monday-morning quarterbacking.”
Stanley “put very capable and experienced lawyers in charge of the Morphew case,” and she relied on their expertise, Caloia said.
Stanley is a 2010 graduate of the University of Denver Sturm College of Law who previously worked as a police officer and a truck driver. When she took office, she said it was buried in a backlog of cases and hampered by prosecutorial vacancies.
Steve Jensen, Stanley’s lawyer, told the Denver Post that he and his client disagree with the decision.
“This was a hard-fought trial but we do not think that Ms. Stanley’s conduct deserves disbarment, period,” he said. “And I believe Ms. Stanley is a good person and also an ethical attorney.”
Jensen told the Associated Press that she was a district attorney in a rural area and didn’t have much experience in high-profile cases, she had fewer resources than prosecutors in urban areas, and she had a difficult time finding prosecutors to work on the case.
Jensen told the Associated Press that he and Stanley were considering whether to appeal.
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