The district attorney whose discovery violations in part led to charges being dismissed in two high-profile murder trials, including the doomed Barry Morphew case, is now being questioned in a 2023 triple murder. Linda Stanley was disbarred by the Colorado Supreme Court last November for...
denvergazette.com
The district attorney whose discovery violations in part led to charges being dismissed in two high-profile murder trials, including the doomed Barry Morphew case, is now being questioned in a 2023 triple murder.
The Colorado Supreme Court disbarred Linda Stanley in November for ethical violations and misconduct, much of that shadowed by her handling of the investigation into the 2020 death of Suzanne Morphew.
Stanley testified that finding and retaining staff in rural jurisdictions with few resources was a challenge.
Her former Assistant District Attorney Jeff Lindsey, who was elected in November, has taken over the flailing prosecution of Hanme Clark, after a year-and-a-half of motions that could have spelled the end of the prosecution's case.
Clark is a former MMA fighter who allegedly shot three people to death and wounded another in a property dispute in an area northeast of Westcliffe.
In court last week, Lindsey acknowledged that the case could be salvaged.
“This is the type of case that requires significant oversight and that didn’t happen,” he said, according to the Wet Mountain Tribune.
“If this case had proceeded it could have been another Morphew.”
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"It's like getting blood from a turnip"
Though it appears that Lindsey has righted the four-county judicial district after Stanley’s mistake-riddled reign, trouble still follows her.
Last week, Judge Swan ordered Stanley to pay Fremont, Chaffee, and Custer counties more than $307,000 after each county’s Board of County Commissioners sued her for using taxpayers’ money to pay for her defense in the Colorado Supreme Court ethics investigation. The amount is three times the money she spent, inflated for damages.
The fourth county in the 11th, Park County, is the only entity that did not join in the lawsuit.
So far, Stanley has not complied with the order and Fremont County Commissioner Kevin Grantham is not hopeful she will pay up.
“It’s like getting blood from a turnip,” he said.
When the saga first started, it took nine days to serve the lawsuit because Stanley was living in a remote cabin in Guffey, according to an affidavit obtained by The Denver Gazette. When processors located her in December, she denied who she was and threw the paperwork into the dirt.
A second attempt to contact Stanley through a registered letter was marked "rejected" and returned.
“It’s a debacle which defies logic,” Grantham said.
Stanley did not respond to a request for comment by The Denver Gazette.