From People v. Stanley, decided Sept. 10 by the Office of Presiding Disciplinary Judge of the Supreme Court of Colorado but just posted to Westlaw; the opinion is by Presiding Disciplinary Judge Bryon M. Large, joined in part by Member Sherry A. Caloia (a lawyer) and in part by Member Melinda M. Harper (a citizen member):
Following the highly publicized disappearance of a Chaffee County woman [Suzanne Morphew], Stanley, who was the newly elected District Attorney of Colorado's 11th Judicial District, brought first-degree murder charges against the woman's spouse [Barry Morphew]. During the prosecution, Stanley made three improper extrajudicial statements about the case to the media, which threatened to prejudice the defendant and undermine the public's interest in justice. Those statements contributed in part to a judicial ruling changing venue in the case. Through this misconduct, Stanley violated Colo. RPC 3.6(a) (a lawyer who participates in the investigation or litigation of a matter must not make an extrajudicial statement that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know will be disseminated by means of public communication and will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding) and Colo. RPC 3.8(f) (prosecutors must refrain from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused unless the comments serve a legitimate law enforcement purpose, are necessary to inform the public of the nature and extent of the prosecutor's action, or are permitted under Colo. RPC 3.6(b)).
At the same time, Stanley did not adequately supervise the prosecution of the case. She failed to timely direct adequate administrative resources to process discovery, leading to a series of judicially imposed sanctions against the prosecution for discovery violations. She failed to take reasonable measures to establish a leadership structure that ensured accountability within the prosecution team, with the result that the prosecution team overlooked important projects in the case. And she failed to intervene when the prosecution team was given an opportunity to cure its deficient endorsements for expert witnesses, the majority of whom were eventually excluded. Through this conduct, Stanley violated Colo. RPC 5.1(b) (a lawyer with direct supervisory authority over another lawyer must make reasonable efforts to ensure that the other lawyer conforms to the Rules of Professional Conduct).
After the presiding judge [Ramsey Lama] issued several adverse rulings less than two months before jury selection, Stanley instructed her chief investigator to interview the judge's former spouse to determine whether the judge committed domestic abuse. Even though she had no credible evidence to believe that the judge had ever engaged in such criminal conduct, Stanley ordered the investigation in an effort to uncover information about the judge that would require him to recuse from the case. Shortly after the interview, which revealed that the judge had never abused his former spouse, Stanley dismissed the case without prejudice. Though this conduct, Stanley attempted to violate Colo. RPC 8.4(d) (it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to engage in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice), thereby contravening Colo. RPC 8.4(a) (it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to attempt to violate the Rules of Professional Conduct).
In a bid to rehabilitate her relationship with the media, Stanley later agreed to sit for a videotaped interview with a local reporter. During that interview, which Stanley reasonably should have known was on the record and would be publicly disseminated, she again made improper extrajudicial statements about two defendants criminally charged in the death of a ten-month-old baby.
She effectively pronounced that one of the defendants was guilty, revealed inadmissible details about the defendant's sexually based juvenile offenses, and impugned the motives and character of the defendants. Two judicial officers, ruling independently, concluded that Stanley's extrajudicial statements amounted to outrageous government conduct so severely prejudicing the defendants that the judiciary was required to dismiss each defendant's criminal case. Through this conduct, Stanley violated Colo. RPC 3.6(a) and Colo. RPC 3.8(f)….
In their opening statement, the People likened Respondent's handling of the Morphew prosecution to that of a ship's captain who never appeared on the bridge. In some ways, this analogy is apt. Respondent's absence at the helm during key phases of the prosecution—even when she was warned that it faced rough waters—led to a series of events that ended with the first-degree murder case running aground.
The analogy captures Respondent's dereliction of her duty as an elected official and the top prosecutor in her district. In that role, her obligation was not to win or to protect her reputation but to see justice done. Instead, her unjustifiable extrajudicial statements in the Jacobs and Crawford cases led to the opposite result, prejudicing each criminal defendant and torpedoing the criminal cases against them. And her baseless decision to launch an in-house investigation of a judge presiding over a case that was close to trial prejudiced the administration of justice and abused her position of trust. She must be disbarred.
This is just the introduction and the conclusion; the full opinion goes into much more detail. Member Caloia dissented in part:
