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The Monsters Aren’t The Ones Beneath The Bed
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State lawyer calls Barry Morphew prosecution a “debacle” as disciplinary hearing starts for district attorney
A two-week disciplinary hearing opened Monday for 11th Judicial District Attorney Linda Stanley, the Colorado prosecutor accused of violating professional rules for attorneys when she prosecuted Ba…
www.denverpost.com
-Stanley mishandled the prosecution so severely that she was forced to drop all charges against Morphew in 2022, said Jonathan Blasewitz, an attorney for the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel, during an opening statement in court Monday. He called the prosecution a “debacle” that was left in “shambles.”
“This case is about a ship with a captain who never manned the bridge,” Blasewitz said. “Instead of navigating the ship and keeping it on course, the captain was engaged with unethical commentary with members of the media … and the ship that crashed was a first-degree murder case.”
During the trial-like disciplinary hearing at the Lindsey-Flanigan Courthouse in downtown Denver, attorneys for the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel are presenting evidence and witness testimony to support the allegations against Stanley. Her attorney, Steve Jensen, is working to defend her.
The evidence will be weighed by a panel of three: Large, Glenwood Springs attorney Sherry Caloia and Melinda Harper, a member of the public. If the board sustains the allegations, it then will determine the sanction, up to disbarment.
-The first witness called Monday was attorney Jeff Lindsey, who was initially the lead prosecutor on the Morphew case.
The small district attorney’s office was overwhelmed by the scope and scale of the investigation into Morphew, Lindsey testified, and he could not handle all of the work alone.
He frequently asked for additional help, but Stanley never provided it, he said, and there was never a full-time prosecutor assigned to the Morphew case. Lindsey was responsible for both the Morphew case and a full felony docket after Morphew’s arrest, he testified.
Stanley was frequently out of the office, was not quick to respond to emails and was “hard to find,” Lindsey testified. He left the job after a few months, resigning because he “physically and mentally could not keep up.”
“I told her I couldn’t do it anymore,” he said, describing a meeting with Stanley. “… She said, ‘It sounds like you are trying to get off a sinking ship.’