CAÑON CITY — Prosecutors on Monday moved to drop the homicide fees they'd filed towards Barry Morphew within the demise of his spouse Suzanne Morphew, who disappeared from the household’s Chaffee County residence in Might 2020, lower than 10 days earlier than the case was set to go to trial.
The request by eleventh Judicial District Lawyer Linda Stanley comes after the choose presiding within the case had blocked the prosecution from utilizing most of its professional witnesses at trial as punishment for violating discovery guidelines — and as prosecutors say they’re near discovering Suzanne Morphew’s physique.
Fremont County District Courtroom Decide Ramsey Lama referred to as a recess to think about the prosecution’s 11-page movement to dismiss, and to permit the protection staff to think about whether or not they need to object to a few of the prosecution’s wording in that movement.
Within the movement, Stanley wrote that she believes investigators are near discovering Suzanne Morphew’s physique.
“The Individuals have been hopeful that the seek for, and the invention of, the sufferer’s physique can be concluded nicely earlier than trial, however climate has sophisticated the efforts,” she wrote.
Stanley has requested to dismiss with out prejudice, which implies the case towards Barry Morphew could possibly be refiled sooner or later.
Stanley additionally wrote that the choose’s limiting of professional witnesses is a part of the rationale for the dismissal: “The Courtroom functionally excluded the Individuals’s greatest proof to maneuver ahead on this case by severely limiting our professional’s testimony,” the movement reads.
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Suzanne Morphew’s household helps dismissal presently, the movement says.
Barry Morphew, 54, is charged with first-degree homicide within the demise of Suzanne Morphew, 49. She was reported lacking by a neighbor, prompting an in depth yearlong search, however her physique was by no means discovered.
Barry Morphew was charged with homicide and linked counts in Might 2021 and is about to face trial on April 28. Prosecutors argue that Barry Morphew found his spouse’s almost two-year extramarital affair and killed her on the night of Might 9, 2020, then disposed of her physique and staged a motorcycle crash earlier than leaving early the subsequent day to work in Broomfield.
BREAKING: DA Linda Stanley recordsdata a movement to dismiss within the homicide case towards Barry Morphew, charged with killing his spouse in Chaffee County in 2020. Courtroom is taking a 15 min recess to think about the movement. @denverpost
— Shelly Bradbury (@ShellyBradbury) April 19, 2022
On the morning of Might 10, 2020, Barry Morphew threw objects away at at the very least 5 completely different areas throughout the Broomfield space, prosecutors stated. After the neighbor found Suzanne Morphew was lacking, Barry Morphew returned to Chaffee County and looked for her. He claimed his spouse was asleep when he left for work that day. Authorities discovered her bicycle in a ditch off County Street 225. Her helmet was discovered almost a mile away a number of days later. Investigators later found Suzanne Morphew’s affair and that she’d considered leaving her husband.
Lama beforehand excluded 12 of the prosecution’s 14 professional witnesses within the case as punishment for the district legal professional’s negligent and “arguably reckless” sample of violating discovery guidelines, he wrote in an April 8 order.
Prosecutors are required to show over doubtlessly exculpatory proof to the protection forward of trial. However eleventh Judicial District Lawyer Linda Stanley and her staff repeatedly missed deadlines, misrepresented proof and failed to show over key info, Lama discovered.
“Over the past eight months and over a number of days of hearings, the Courtroom has witnessed a sample of disregard by the Individuals in direction of its Rule 16 obligations… This Courtroom has repeatedly famous it doesn't, in any approach, condone the Individuals’s conduct,” Lama wrote within the 20-page order. “The conduct has, within the Courtroom’s eyes, been recognizably constant. Whereas the Courtroom… doesn't discover this sample willful based mostly on the document, the Courtroom does discover this sample to be negligent, bordering on, reckless.”
Prosecutors didn't correctly inform protection attorneys about unknown male DNA that was present in Suzanne Morphew’s car or that the DNA profile partially matched samples from three unsolved intercourse assaults throughout the nation. Stanley’s workplace additionally failed to satisfy a number of deadlines for disclosing the anticipated thrust of their professional witnesses’ testimony, the order says.
Due to these failures, Lama stated prosecution specialists in DNA, car information and cellular phone information evaluation can't testify in the course of the jury trial — primarily excluding info that the prosecution stated in a courtroom submitting was “important” to their case.
“The exclusion of those witnesses damages the Individuals’s case in a profound approach,” Deputy District Lawyer Grant Grosgebauer wrote in a movement asking the choose to rethink.
Denver protection legal professional David Lane stated Monday that the sanctions are uncommon and he would have preferred to see much more extreme punishment.
“Most prosecutors play inside the guidelines of professionalism and ethics,” he stated. “You don’t actually see it fairly often. However these prosecutors apparently have by no means learn these guidelines, a lot much less complied with them. It’s very uncommon to have all these shenanigans come up in a single case.”
He recommended Lama ought to have taken extra steps to punish the violations, like recommending the prosecutors face disciplinary motion or holding them in contempt of courtroom.
“Placing witnesses is a reasonably sturdy treatment and I commend the choose for doing that,” Lane stated. “However they apparently haven’t realized their lesson even from that.”