Oh Linda...

Part of the Prosecution Problem Series - Special Report

Welcome back to Much Ado About Something¹, the cheekily titled blog publication all about the criminal justice system.

This week we will be discussing one of my favorite topics within the system: prosecutors. I, like the other prosecutor mentioned in this piece, have a common tie between us: we are former prosecutors and we all violated our ethical principles to the people of Colorado. However, I was only suspended for three years², and I was what was known as a “line” prosecutor. I didn’t even do the dangerous stuff. My last conviction as a prosecutor was for trespassing, disturbing the peace, and a garden variety harassment charge.

No, the other prosecutor here has years and years of experience, and was elected to serve her constiutents as the head boss. She also happened to be disbarred recently.³ Within this story, pay attention to who the “victims” of her actions as elected DA were. Yes, there are defendants, but there is also a bigger societal costs for her ethical violations.

This is Familiar

Linda Stanley, the elected District Attorney for the 11th Judicial District of Colorado, was disbarred from the practice of law last week for her failings as the head prosecutor from 2021-2024.⁴ As a new aficionado of legal ethics, I wanted to read the ethics opinion and see if I could gleam what not to do if I go back to the practice of law.⁵ And holyfckngshtwoweee this was a good example of what not to do.

Here are some highlights:

1. Investigating a judge’s ex-wife on follow up of domestic violence tip you got from a Gofundme⁶ to try to “preserve the record”⁷;

2. Hitting do not disturb to frantic ALL CAPS emails from your prosecution team on a highly publicised murder case;

3. Arguing that simply saying “this is off-record” allows you to discuss highly prejudicial evidence with members of the press, even though the camera and mic are on at the time;

4. Having two of those aforementioned cases be dismissed for “extreme” and “outrageous” government conduct, i.e. the comments from the elected District Attorney; and

5. Replying to the comment section⁸, after they dogged you for your own possible ethical violations in commenting on the Barry Morphew case.

Listen, I did some really dumb things to get my suspension. Mine was about truthfulness, hers was about extrajudicial statements and overall competency.⁹ I admit to my conduct. It’s the right thing to do and my unethical conduct was incredibly obvious. If you read my affidavit and otherwise, it is not hard to see that the ultimate crime was simply wasting the People’s time. And I am not a big deal, not by a longshot.

Linda Stanley on the other hand¹⁰wasted an entire judicial district’s (and four counties’) time, money and likely did little to assuage fear of crime in a remote district nestled in the mountains.¹¹ Her disciplinary opinion orbited around two primary subject matters, the Morphew case and two companion cases as to the death of an infant. If you are not familiar, Barry Morphew was accused and arrested for killing his wife, Suzanne Morphew, after she went missing on Mother’s Day, 2020. However, at the time there was no body. It is pretty hard to charge someone with murder without a body, and the investigation had been ongoing before Linda Stanley became the elected DA. Three things then happened that likely sealed Stanley’s disbarment fate in the Morphew case: (1) the premature charging decision¹²; (2) failing to control the monstrous flow of discovery and allowing it to “snowball” in turn causing more problems; and (3) and Linda Stanley’s devastatingly bad call to not at least officially participate in the case.¹³

All of those things precipitated in Stanley’s lewd extrajudicial remarks and her inability to “stop the bleeding”, until she lame-duck dismissed the case. If she takes a prominent role within the prosecution team, I would bet at least 90%¹⁴ she doesn’t make those extra judicial remarks. I would also venture to guess that if the level of organization had been better, she could have trusted her team to be in better step with each other. But what do I know, I was just a line prosecutor.

Obviously me

Humble Beginnings

Stanley was admitted in 2012 after a career in law enforcement and truck driving, and spent a bit of time prosecuting before going to private practice, and then running for elected DA in 2020. Surprisingly, Stanley had an opponent in the Republican primary (Thom LeDoux)¹⁵ and also in the general election (Kaitlin Turner) which she won with 52% of the vote. I found an article with an interview between Stanley and local news outlet, Mountain Mail right before the election. Let’s dive in:

Q: What have you been most proud of in your legal career?

LS: That’s a hard question because there are a myriad of accomplishments that I am proud of; however, generally speaking, they are not the accomplishments that one would put on a resume.

Instead, they are highlighted by the general public that I serve.

When a victim contacts me after a case is over and tells me that they will never be able to repay me for what I’ve done, or when an officer has a difficult case that they want to make sure is handled properly and they tell me they were so glad to find out I was assigned to it, or when a judge comments to my supervisor that I am a powerhouse in jury trials and have a natural and easy way to relate to juries, or when investigators that are listening to jail calls tell me the defendant is scared now because I am the prosecutor on the case, or when I see pictures of a happy dog in its new home after it was confiscated for abuse and I was able to help save its life.

All of these things contribute to my proudest moments and quite frankly, to my life.

Q: What do you feel the role of the district attorney is?

LS: The district attorney’s role is to promote and seek justice. That means justice for the victim, for the defendant and for the community….

Q: What do you hope to accomplish/change as 11th Judicial District DA?

LS: I hope to show the citizens of this district what a district attorney should be. It’s not about the number of cases filed or the number of trials won. It’s about character. And integrity. And doing the right thing no matter what and no matter if anyone else is watching. It’s an incredibly powerful position that needs to be handled with humble hands.

Q: In light of recent comments/endorsements by district law enforcement and political committees, how important are political affiliations, experience and ability in carrying out the duties of DA. Is any aspect more important that the others?

LS: First, I didn’t ask for any endorsements from any law enforcement officials. I didn’t ask because I didn’t think it would be fair to ask them for an endorsement when they have never seen me in office as a prosecutor.

If they haven’t actually seen me in action, how could I ask them to support me? It would have been for political party purposes only and I am not a politician. Additionally, politics should never enter the district attorney’s office, ever.

Second, originally, there were more names on the list of endorsements than what the final number was.

The letter containing the list of endorsements and the email that accompanied it were leaked to me several weeks before they were released to the public.

I was able to do some “damage control” and consequently some names that were originally on the letter as endorsing my opponent were subsequently removed.

However, two of the three sheriffs listed on the letter have never met with me. Let me make it clear that I had requested meetings before and after the letter was released.

I find it particularly disturbing that any top law enforcement officer, who has not only the means but the obligation to thoroughly investigate accusations, fails to do just that before rendering a decision. And that should bother the citizens of this district as well.

Interesting Quotes:

That’s what I will do. I know how to manage the district attorney’s office while focusing on efficiency.

I am the only candidate who has personally conducted numerous trials at every level.

Everyone will be treated fairly and equally. I have zero tolerance for anything less.

The 11th Judicial consists of Park¹⁶, Chaffee¹⁷, Custer, and Fremont counties. The biggest city out of those four counties is Cañon City, which incidentally enough is where seven, very large prisons.¹⁸ This is within what resembles, more or less, a college campus of “higher punishment” rather than learning. These four counties’ populations roughly make up about 93,000 people. The towns themselves are nestled in the Rocky Mountains, making the drive and transportation perilous in the winter, leaving most people remote half of the year. Fremont and Chaffee are around the same percentage (9%) of those below the poverty line, more than the 6% statewide number. Custer and Park are closer to about 2%.

Why do I recite this information? Because it is relevant to the question of lack of resources or political gain. Asking yourself, was this Stanley situation because of lack of resources? It is true, Stanley inherited an office with an enormous backlog of cases and little resources. Stanley also knew about the Morphew investigation while running for office. This discovery issue that plagued the prosecution was readily known, yet Stanley did nothing.

Then there is the incident with former Judge Lama.¹⁹ I think this one was something Linda wanted to take the lead on, which is perplexing to say the least given her lack of involvement. I will say, this was a reach and they knew it was. I really don’t want to get into it out of respect for Lama, who has had enough of his life turned upside down from this case. It bears repeating though, that this seemed to be driven by Linda to find a way out instead of facing the music of her dilema.

This is in stark contrast to her comments prior to being elected, which seemed to tout her extensive experience as a prosecutor and her knowledge. In fact, the whole interview stands in stark contrast to her actions later on. Even though she wards herself against politics, the answers she gave seem articulated to do one thing: win political office. Political campaigning and justice are axiomatically divergent concepts. DA’s should not be worried with making promises to constituents. You keep your promise as a DA by administering justice for your constituents. Popularity contests are not indicative of how successful a candidate will be as an elected DA, and we see the obvious example here.

Compounding the District’s Interest

At this point you may be wondering, how much did the Morphew case cost the 11th Judicial DA’s office?

Around…

$250,000

Nearly a quarter of a million dollars.²⁰

For real. And they ended up getting cold feet and dismissing it at the last second. I imagine that the more affluent counties helped to pick up that bill. But that was only the criminal trial.

There is the issue of the cost of Stanley’s CObar disciplinary hearing. This is where we get to flex a little activism muscle. On Sept 11th, KRDO 13 (who has got Stanley’s other golden moments on tape) reported the district’s counties may have already paid part of her legal expenses too. Allegedly she signed multiple checks from the DA’s office fund to her bar attorney totaling about $53,000 between 2023-2024. That’s not much money compared to above, but as someone who didn’t go to a disciplinary hearing but paid (and is still paying) a bit for his (great!) representation, that could easily have been the whole lawyer bill or close to it. That changes Stanley’s intent here.

Now, Stanley has asserted through her attorney that she would be paying the county back, and that there is a law that authorizes this for reasonable expenses that implicates the job. But if I was a taxpayer in one of those four counties, I would be pretty livid. Why?

It’s Stanley’s choices, personally made, that implicate misconduct. Voter’s supported her because of all of those reasons above she gave prior to her election. Would you say that her conduct supported the things she said of the principles she valued? No. But at the time, they sounded good.

Stanley chose to fight OARC (Office of Atty Regulation Counsel) instead of admitting to the misconduct, taking her disbarment, and apologizing. She was defiant in the hearing too, asserting excusable defenses and even her constitutional rights under the First Amendment to say things like:

“He's watching that baby so he can get laid. That's it. And have a place to sleep. I'm sorry to be that blunt, but honest to god, that's what's going on”

…in a recorded interview. That was about a case where a 10-month old died and the boyfriend (William Henry Jacobs) and the mom (Brook Crawford) were both charged. Later both cases were dismissed because of the comments by Stanley. I won’t be making unwarranted comments…

But you can’t help but think that the only one really harmed was the baby who will never get some sort of justice.

When there is ineptitude and not clear forethought in the office of your local DA, the only people who hurt are you.

Dear Linda

So Linda, if you are reading this, make amends to your constituents and colleagues. It is never too late to apologize for what happened and try to make it right, I should know. It may not change your disbarment but I have found that when my world is falling down around me, it is better to stay put than cling to the disintegrating world, finding a place to stand rather than hoping to regain your footing. That takes acceptance, not denial.

If you are really about justice and treating everyone with equality, then treat yourself to a bit of humility. Attorneys are powerful people, and we get caught up in thinking we are “untouchable” whilst in our ivory towers. There were only a few years under my belt as a prosecutor but I can understand this feeling. It was that feeling that propelled me to where I am today. But maybe

---

After that, what does this leave us with putting the puzzle together for rural prosecution problems in America, at least in Colorado? This whole situation shows two things: (1) promises drive politics; (2) when those promises are not upheld in respect to the CJS, the public is the only one who hurts. This is far more visible to those in local counties, because of the immediacy in which an elected DA affects public safety, or the view of it. So, when we allow those to “elect” the DA, rather than them being appointed, we are making a decision to punish the constituents for not being able to read a candidate’s bullshit well enough.

This is a different phase of the prosecution problem, and one that risks undermining public confidence in the CJS yet again. Judges in CO? Appointed by the governor Magistrates? Hired on qualifications. State public defender? Appointed. District Attorney’s who are the first line of defense against injustice? Elected. If you’re in a rural jurisdiction, you may not even have a choice!

If we believe that all these other positions are important enough to not leave it up to popular vote, why don’t we do it with DAs?

- Thanks for reading!

HJRC

Next time in this particular prosecution problem segment, we’re going to look at Alonzo Payne, who was disbarred in 2022 for lack of cooperating with victims of crime. Stay tuned!