Colorado 11th Judicial District Attorney Linda Stanley is now facing a disciplinary complaint filed with the Colorado Supreme Court by no less than the judge who presided over the final portions of the Suzanne Morphew murder trial. Depending upon the Supreme Court’s review of the complaint, Stanley could lose her license to practice law.
The 11th District DA Linda Stanley. Courtesy photo.
Judge Ramsey Lama filed the complaint this week citing numerous instances in which Stanley violated legal standards. These include being late to court, launching a clandestine investigation of Judge Lama, and numerous discovery violations across several cases, including during the Morphew murder trial. During that trial, she was observed texting to YouTubers, giving them information about the case that she wasn’t giving to the attorneys trying the case or the defense attorneys.
This is not the first time Stanley has been the proverbial “hot water”. In April, she was sanctioned by District Judge Caitlin Turner for delaying the production of discovery documents.
When the documents were produced, the judge noted the documents were incomplete, or the background for the case shifts, but the discovery detail for the shift was not provided.
The situation has repeatedly allowed indicted individuals to go free or plead down their cases, with their defense attorneys saying they aren’t getting the information they need to provide fair representation for their clients under the law.
In Turner’s sanction of Stanley, over the past three years, according to Turner, there have been as many as 20 cases in which prosecutors in Stanley’s DA Office have a “pattern of widespread discovery violations.”
Most ordinary Coloradans would agree that the defendants allowed to go free are appalling: one, an admitted child sex abuser. Another, a murderer who had already admitted to shooting his father in the back of the head. Then there is the Morphew case, in which defense attorney Iris Eytan made a motion to dismiss the case in Dec. 2021 due to the delays. She repeated that request several times in court before the case was dismissed in April 2022.
The complaint will now be heard before the Colorado Supreme Court; an uncomfortable situation for a Colorado DA, to say the least.
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