Found Deceased CO - Suzanne Morphew, 49, Chaffee Co, 10 May 2020 *Case dismissed w/o Prejudice* #101

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GatorFL said:
Having read all that I have one question: then why didn't the prosecution appeal the judge's rulings to a higher court? If it were all due to defense hullabaloo, certainly the People would want to appeal to a higher court to get the sanctions removed. Despite your elaborate argument, there are reasons the state chose to dismiss instead of appeal.
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Because they really are expecting to find the body?

I mean that is what they wrote in their motion to dismiss, so maybe it's simply true.
 
Megnut said:
That the Prosecution is a stumbling, bumbling mess is a narrative pushed by an expensive defense. The degree to which it's accurate, exaggerated or fabricated is open for discussion.

The judge IMO relied heavily on the defense's representation of the case and of violations.

I'd like clarification.

We already know some "violations" weren't actually violations. Defense had the discovery, they just couldn't find it.

The defense, if I understand this correctly, represented that the Prosecution withheld exculpatory discovery by not disclosing the Codis hits (linked to unsolved but later solved crimes bearing no similariy to Suzanne's abduction). It was only the defense and only the defense's spin that those hits were viable suspects. They weren't. Then, ever or now! (Even though the defense is still spouting it!)

In email and memo mining, the defense picked up on discord among the ranks, regarding the timing of Barry's arrest. Key to note that the disagreement was on timing -- from those who wanted to be there for the tasty takedown and from those who felt that, in holding off on an arrest, Barry might keep talking, a boon of valuable doublespeak. Again, the pointed conversation was about when Barry should be arrested. It was the defense alone who conflated this into a supposed rigorous debate among LE about whether Barry should be arrested, further implying a lack of evidence, as if some felt he was innocent! Gross mischaracterization!

Same with the dog. No real followup by the Prosecution because IMO it just wasn't newsworthy. Now, the defense tried hard to sell a story that the dog lost the scent at a log -- a worm that made into the judge's, no less. But the dog never found a scent. Nothing exculpatory there. Nothing there, period. IMO an expert they, for trial, no longer intended to call. The defense, however, was successful in their story-telling, convincing the judge the prosecution was holding back information that could exonerate Barry by pointing elsewhere. No such thing. The dog actually makes it worse for Barry. Suzanne was never there.

That's the part the defense didn't say.

This is all smoke and mirrors IMO. The prosecution isn't obligated to put every expert on the stand, including ones that reinforce the case against Barry but are minor players.

IMO where this went horribly sideways is with the judge's sanctions which blanketed all experts, not just the ones in question.

Of course, if the dog had trailed Suzanne's scent to a location (like a log), the Prosecution can't withhold or bury that information. A defendant"s right to a fair trial depends on disclosure. Of evidence that is exculpatory. This was not that!

Iris' post-court analysis highlights the false story she wants to sell. That there are SOs three states away who have a connection to this case (there aren't and they don't).

I could be wrong but I think the prosecution was prepared to lose their dog expert -- no one expected the judge to exclude nearly all of their experts, effectively eviserating their circumstantional no body case.

Frankly I think the defense attorneys should've been sanctioned, for misleading the court.

In any event, here we are. If the Prosecution can come back with a body case, the defendant will be in a new world of hurt. Especially when she's found in a location he knows in a manner he knows how to do. Lover, out. Mountain lion, out. Ecuador, out. Suicide, out. SODDIs, out. The husband, in.

As the snow melts, let us hope LE can bring Suzanne home.

JMO
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Brilliant post!
 
GatorFL said:
I saw that attorney's thoughts on the sanctions. I also saw analysis posted earlier in the prior thread that the sanctions would carry over if he were recharged. So, the status of the sanctions is unknown, IMO.

Curious, why do you think the case was dismissed?
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When the judge ruled no expert testimony on the phone & vehicle telematics, the case was gutted. Jurors in a murder one case need to know they are relying on the most credible evidence possible. When the evidence is circumstantial and data-reliant, that is even more important, IMO.
 
For @crhedBngr: more info about ATV and Jeep trails around the Maysville area from a local business:
BBM
Off Roading - ATV and 4WD Adventures
The Mountains around Salida and Buena Vista have a rich history in mining. In the late 1800’s, Maysville, west of Salida, was actually one of the largest towns in the county because of all the mines in the area. While the mining activity is long over, the mountains have been left with a network of old roads, that in most cases are still available for use today. Often the drive to a trailhead is just as much fun as the hikes we go on, and on many occasions we just drive the roads to see the country side, spot wildlife, or to take on the challenge “do you think we can get our truck up that?”.


SALIDA AREA - Maysville (11 miles west of Salida) is a great starting point for these adventures. There are dozens of forest roads that literally head up into the mountains in every direction. Get yourself a copy of the San Isabel National Forest map, or the Latitude 40 map for Salida and Buena Vista trails, and you are set to go (we always carry copies of both of these maps). Some favorites have been forest road 240, which starts just on the other side of highway 50, and follows the North Fork of the South Arkansas River up to a stunning basin at 12,000 feet. The first four miles are paved, but once you pass the Angel of Shavano Campground it quickly becomes steeper and more interesting. There is a great waterfall just past the campground as well. Once you have crossed over the river, there is a big switchback, and as you turn back towards where the river should be, look for a pullout on the right. You will need to hike about 100 yards, but it is well worth it! Another favorite, forest road 221 (and offshoot 222), which starts as the Greens Creek Road two miles east of Maysville is alsoa great one to explore. After a few miles of flat easy travel, these roads (to use the term loosely) take you up the ridges and higher valleys to the south of Maysville into some very wild country that is very much worth checking out. If you like those routes, forest road 210 starts another mile east of 221, and takes you up into another complex of routes that is also great to explore. Further to the South is Marshall Pass, with another great complex of routes, and well we could go on all day. If playing on rough backcountry roads sounds like your kind of fun, there is no end of places to go.
Colorado Mountain Vacations

It’s no wonder that it’s been so difficult to locate SM’s remains.
 
I think the defense did a bait and switch. Deliberately deceptive.

Detail: a dog was brought out on 5/10. Dog was given a scent item and dog nosed around, alerting to nothing.

Defense pounced on this, as an opportunity to obfuscate. Probably officers, untrained as handlers, who watched the dog that day were optismistic, misinterpreting the dog's movements for tracking. But the dog actually found no scent to follow. And yet, the defense made a lot of noise in the courtroom (just as they did regarding the dead-in-the-water Codis hits), convincing the judge that the prosection was willfully withholding exculpatory discovery! I think the defense created the discovery violation! Because IMO there wasn't one!

In fact, it was a surprise to everyone that there was any kind of written report about that event, a report which underscores that there's nothing there helpful to the defendant!

The judge bought it. Referred to his notes, not the transcript. He was misled.

Neither the dog and handler nor the Codis hits were hushed by the Prosecution -- they were dead ends!! Well aware, the defense stirred them up and pretended they were something else!! This is not a search for truth! That is a willful distortion of the truth, meant to pollute the courtroom water.

I think if we laid out all the defense's arguments and motions we'd see a pattern of violations of the truth.

I am horrified at the statements made by the defense in court and out of court -- things that are patently and provably false.

That, to me, is outrageous. And a serious miscarriage of justice.

JMO
 
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OldCop said:
For @crhedBngr: more info about ATV and Jeep trails around the Maysville area from a local business:
BBM
Off Roading - ATV and 4WD Adventures
The Mountains around Salida and Buena Vista have a rich history in mining. In the late 1800’s, Maysville, west of Salida, was actually one of the largest towns in the county because of all the mines in the area. While the mining activity is long over, the mountains have been left with a network of old roads, that in most cases are still available for use today. Often the drive to a trailhead is just as much fun as the hikes we go on, and on many occasions we just drive the roads to see the country side, spot wildlife, or to take on the challenge “do you think we can get our truck up that?”.


SALIDA AREA - Maysville (11 miles west of Salida) is a great starting point for these adventures. There are dozens of forest roads that literally head up into the mountains in every direction. Get yourself a copy of the San Isabel National Forest map, or the Latitude 40 map for Salida and Buena Vista trails, and you are set to go (we always carry copies of both of these maps). Some favorites have been forest road 240, which starts just on the other side of highway 50, and follows the North Fork of the South Arkansas River up to a stunning basin at 12,000 feet. The first four miles are paved, but once you pass the Angel of Shavano Campground it quickly becomes steeper and more interesting. There is a great waterfall just past the campground as well. Once you have crossed over the river, there is a big switchback, and as you turn back towards where the river should be, look for a pullout on the right. You will need to hike about 100 yards, but it is well worth it! Another favorite, forest road 221 (and offshoot 222), which starts as the Greens Creek Road two miles east of Maysville is alsoa great one to explore. After a few miles of flat easy travel, these roads (to use the term loosely) take you up the ridges and higher valleys to the south of Maysville into some very wild country that is very much worth checking out. If you like those routes, forest road 210 starts another mile east of 221, and takes you up into another complex of routes that is also great to explore. Further to the South is Marshall Pass, with another great complex of routes, and well we could go on all day. If playing on rough backcountry roads sounds like your kind of fun, there is no end of places to go.
Colorado Mountain Vacations

It’s no wonder that it’s been so difficult to locate SM’s remains.
Click to expand...

Thank you, @OldCop !
 
If Barry created a line from bike to helmet to something that may have gone unfound, IMO that is (as others, like @OldCop, have suggested) a big red arrow pointing away from the direction he went.

There's no reason to drive an additional six miles just to turn around (at Garfield) --

I think Barry may have turned left to pitch the helmet and then he went 6 miles, not to turn around, but to do something else.

4:30 am. Too early to see much of anything, including rackless bull elk), no truck functional events, at least of which we're aware... I'm assuming window events aren't recorded or we'd have heard about one in relation to the helmet. My theory -- he drove to a ridge of some sort and threw Suzanne's phone over the edge.

And when LE said they'd found an item, he didn't know which they'd found, the helmet, the bike or any other item he may have laid out.

He turned her phone off IMO just prior to leaving PP wih it. Possibly it pinged for the last time off a new tower because Barry had removed it from the house (inside) and turned it off in the driveway (outside) before heading up the mountain.

Mountain lions don't drag their prey up mountains but murderers maybe do.

Her phone may still be out there. It was dark. If he throws like he bats, it may well have stopped short, hung up on something, a ledge, a branch, 6 miles from PP.

JMO
 
MassGuy said:
The defense never asked for more time, which says everything. They made a big deal about all this discovery stuff from the very first day, and were asking for a dismissal very early.

So obviously, any issues couldn't have impacted them a great deal, and I think they were just doing their thing, and trying to give their client every possible advantage.

Part of me wonders if they were pushing this along because they may have been concerned that Suzanne's body might be found.

Of course maybe they felt the prosecution was on their heels, and the quicker this happened, the greater the advantage.
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MassGuy said:
“I think they will be able to start from the beginning. I think they will be able to reintroduce these experts, to do the discovery right, to correct the mistakes they had made in the previous case.”
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^^rsbm

Having observed E & N defense strategy long before they represented Morphew, they are excellent at frustrating the prosecution by burying them with motions from their first appearance, in addition to gaining ground on technicalities.

Hurricane Iris certainly demonstrated her skill at throwing everything (fact or fiction) at the wall and making use of whatever sticks.

(IMO, she didn't pull the wool over Judge Murphy but I'd say Lama bought everything she spewed).

And should E & N represent BM at a retrial, I agree with Dan May where (this defense team especially) it will be an uphill battle for the understaffed prosecution of the 11th Judicial District to reintroduce expert witnesses previously barred by court order sanctions.

Not to say it will be impossible to reintroduce the experts or discovery but IMO, the clean slate as implied by the quoted post is more typical when the dismissal occurs prior to the preliminary hearing and the case is bound over for trial.
 
Megnut said:
I think the defense did a bait and switch. Deliberately deceptive.

Detail: a dog was brought out on 5/10. Dog was given a scent item and dog nosed around, alerting to nothing.

Defense pounced on this, as an opportunity to obfuscate. Probably officers, untrained as handlers, who watched the dog that day were optismistic, misinterpreting the dog's movements for tracking. But the dog actually found no scent to follow. And yet, the defense made a lot of noise in the courtroom (just as they did regarding the dead-in-the-water Codis hits), convincing the judge that the prosection was willfully withholding exculpatory discovery! I think the defense created the discovery violation! Because IMO there wasn't one!

In fact, it was a surprise to everyone that there was any kind of written report about that event, a report which underscores that there's nothing there helpful to the defendant!

The judge bought it. Referred to his notes, not the transcript. He was misled.

Neither the dog and handler nor the Codis hits were hushed by the Prosecution -- they were dead ends!! Well aware, the defense stirred them up and pretended they were something else!! This is not a search for truth! That is a willful distortion of the truth, meant to pollute the courtroom water.

I think if we laid out all the defense's arguments and motions we'd see a pattern of violations of the truth.

I am horrified at the statements made by the defense in court and out of court -- things that are patently and provably false.

That, to me, is outrageous. And a serious miscarriage of justice.

JMO
Click to expand...
Yes, the Defense team did mislead and the judge repeated their falsehoods in his order (which he indicated were from his "notes" rather than the court transcript which the judge indicated was not yet available).

After listening to LS convey her own detailed notes from that hearing in which the dog handler testified, it was clear that the dog handler disagreed with the defense team's claims about what he reported/testified to and he used his testimony to correct the defense team's misstatement of what happened. Yet somehow the judge did not get the dog handler's correction in his notes, a serious and consequential omission. The judge substituted the defense's claims for the actual evidence.

It is ridiculous that a report would even have been required for a dog and handler brought out to the scene where nothing was found and where a LE officer included that information in his own report. If it was a glaring omission that the prosecution failed to seek and obtain a separate "nothing found" report from a dog handler who found nothing, then it would be a glaring omission that the prosecution failed to seek and obtain a report from every single person who participated in LE's many days of searching and found nothing - an effort that involved hundreds of personnel from the local sheriff's office, police department, CBI, FBI, Search and Rescue, Dept of Corrections, and others. That the dog handler himself (who indicated he has participated in such circumstances in the past) did not even see a need to pass along a report (separate from the attending LE officer's own report) suggests that it would have been unusual. Every dead end is not a reportable event; some are just explorations for evidence which yield none.
 
Kemug said:
Actually I was wondering about fire ants, I had one bite me once, and let me tell you it is no fun at all. But for our Zoo, I'm thinking maybe we should add a mixed bag - red, soldier, fire, whatever. The more the merrier.:D
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^^bbm

Speaking of a mixed bag...

I've been consumed by the trial of three defendants (across the pond in Wales, UK), accused of killing a 5 yr old child that concluded yesterday with three guilty verdicts.

During the closing arguments, the prosecution referred to the trio killers as "rats in a bag."

Recalling how BM would talk to himself, he too is a fat rat in a bag -- surrounded by his ego rats. JMO
 
I remember seeing this tweet from Day 1 of the Preliminary on August 9, 2021 about searching close to Puma Path. I bookmarked it for some reason.

https://twitter.com/marcsallinger/status/1424762315811917829?s=21&t=Dy1GvN_rQ3ikWUIvlUGrUQ
Defense attorney is painting a picture that people have searched for thousands of hours around huge spaces of land and none of the investigations have resulted in finding Suzanne Morphew's body. 134 search warrants have been signed in this case by judge

https://twitter.com/marcsallinger/status/1424761743910207490?s=21&t=Dy1GvN_rQ3ikWUIvlUGrUQ

Defense Attorney asks Commander Walker "How thoroughly has the one mile radius around the Morphew home been searched?" Walker replies "Still work to be done."
 
Seattle1 said:
^^bbm

Speaking of a mixed bag...

I've been consumed by the trial of three defendants (across the pond in Wales, UK), accused of killing a 5 yr old child that concluded yesterday with three guilty verdicts.

During the closing arguments, the prosecution referred to the trio killers as "rats in a bag."

Recalling how BM would talk to himself, he too is a fat rat in a bag -- surrounded by his ego rats. JMO
Click to expand...
Was v glad to see you on Logan’s thread. An example of justice being served, at its best. Let’s hope Suzanne has the same one day.
 
The hope is that he will be closely watched in the days, months etc.., to come, and perhaps in his desire to be certain her remains will never be found, he will unwittingly lead authorities to them... just a thought.
 
Question for our legal eagles:

If and when this case is re-tried, is it a given that Judge Lama will preside, or will it depend on availability? Are there even any other possible judges?

Thanks in advance!
 
WingsOverTX said:
Sad when the judge needs a fact checker for misdeeds. I really don't know how you remedy judicial malfeasance of this nature. Maybe Stanley herself should be monitoring the judge and object when he fails in his duty of oversight, whether or not that failure is deemed willful.

JMO
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I suspect at least some voters will express their dissatisfaction in the respective elections for both the judge and the DA.

However, both had solid majorities in Fremont County last time, that were enough to overcome deficits in other counties. Will this case stick in the people's craw long enough and painfully enough to penalize these officials? Competence and diligence concerns seem well founded for both at this point. LS has populist appeal, Judge L not so much...
 
Megnut said:
I think the defense did a bait and switch. Deliberately deceptive.

Detail: a dog was brought out on 5/10. Dog was given a scent item and dog nosed around, alerting to nothing.

Defense pounced on this, as an opportunity to obfuscate. Probably officers, untrained as handlers, who watched the dog that day were optismistic, misinterpreting the dog's movements for tracking. But the dog actually found no scent to follow. And yet, the defense made a lot of noise in the courtroom (just as they did regarding the dead-in-the-water Codis hits), convincing the judge that the prosection was willfully withholding exculpatory discovery! I think the defense created the discovery violation! Because IMO there wasn't one!

In fact, it was a surprise to everyone that there was any kind of written report about that event, a report which underscores that there's nothing there helpful to the defendant!

The judge bought it. Referred to his notes, not the transcript. He was misled.

Neither the dog and handler nor the Codis hits were hushed by the Prosecution -- they were dead ends!! Well aware, the defense stirred them up and pretended they were something else!! This is not a search for truth! That is a willful distortion of the truth, meant to pollute the courtroom water.

I think if we laid out all the defense's arguments and motions we'd see a pattern of violations of the truth.

I am horrified at the statements made by the defense in court and out of court -- things that are patently and provably false.

That, to me, is outrageous. And a serious miscarriage of justice.

JMO
Click to expand...
True. But the most serious miscarriage of justice is the defense got away with this behavior.

Prosecution team should have been very lively about any distortions of truth. "Objection, your honor!"

And the judge should have been unwilling to accept lies and distortions. Is it laziness, bias or is Judge L really not that sharp?

I guess he was waiting for the prosecution to ask for sanctions? Did they ever do that? They charged a man with murder one. Be in it to win it!

JMHO
 
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