Colorado DA Council backs 11th Judicial DA in appeal of first-degree murder sanctions

FREMONT COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) -- Two state agencies are weighing in on the sanctions recently imposed on the 11th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, but both offer conflicting arguments on how the Colorado Supreme Court should rule.

On April 4, Fremont County Judge Kaitlin Turner — Stanley’s opponent in the race for 11th Judicial District Attorney back in 2020 — dropped first-degree murder charges against Joseph Tippet because of alleged ongoing evidence violations by the 11th Judicial District Attorney’s Office. Turner declined to comment.

Tippet is accused of shooting his father, William Tippet, in the back of the head in January. He later confessed twice to jail deputies on video, according to the petition. Tippet is now charged with second-degree murder because the defense alleges it took more than two months to receive one-tenth of the evidence from the DA’s office — a violation of Colorado court rules, requiring prosecution to turn over evidence to the defense within 21 days of the defendant's first court appearance.

On May 9, Stanley appealed the sanctions to the Colorado Supreme Court. She didn’t deny evidence was late and “constituted a discovery violation” but claimed the majority of the evidence was given to the defense 28 days Tippet's first appearance.

In a response to Stanley’s appeal, Public Defender Adam Tunink, representing Tippet, filed an answer with the Supreme Court on Tuesday. He said before March 22, 2023, the prosecution had produced 190 items of evidence. He claimed from March 22, 2023, to March 29, 2023, 1,134 items of evidence were produced — six weeks after the court rule deadline, disputing Stanley’s claim it was only seven days late.

Now, two state agencies are weighing in on the state Supreme Court case.

The Colorado District Attorney’s Council (CDAC) filed a brief to the Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday supporting Stanley. The agency never denies that Stanley’s office struggled with discovery violations, but said the sanctions were excessive and “unprecedented.”

“Given the early stage of the proceedings and the lack of prejudice to the truth-seeking that this Court recognized to be the ‘paramount interest at stake’ in ‘the criminal justice context,’ the ‘pattern of neglect’ on discovery issues found by the Court cannot justify the drastic sanction imposed here,” the CDAC said in its brief.

However, these sanctions aren’t unprecedented. Tunink points out in his response that former Fremont County Judge Ramsey Lama handed down similar sanctions in a case eighteen months earlier. He reduced a class 1 felony to a class 2 felony to “deter future discovery violations and ensure compliance with the Court’s orders.”

This didn’t happen. Since March, 13 Investigates uncovered 33 separate criminal cases with alleged discovery violations.

Of the 33 cases where the DA’s office violated Rule 16, 13 Investigates confirmed five were entirely dismissed. Those include two child sexual assault cases, a murder case, a child porn case, and a strangulation case.

In her appeal, Stanley claims there isn’t a “pattern of discovery violations.”

“A pattern is not automatically established simply because a number of dissimilar cases have discovery violations occurring within them over a period of time,” the appeal said. “There is no distinction in the trial court’s ruling as to any objective factor such as numerosity of violation, timeline of violations, type of violations, their timing within case procedure, or the cause of violations.”

13 Investigates spoke with former 4th Judicial District Attorney Dan May when Stanley filed her appeal. He said judges are supposed to impose the least restrictive sanctions possible to make sure both parties receive the necessary evidence for a fair preliminary hearing and subsequent trial.

“To get to the level that you are now dismissing charges, changing charges, now you're affecting the outcome of the case,” he said. “You shouldn't be doing that unless there's something really extraordinary that you just can't level the playing field at this point.”

The CDAC also said Judge Turner imposed sanctions without finding any “willful misconduct” regarding the evidence violations or that the violations affected the trial.

However, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office disagrees. In its response to the sanctions, filed with the Colorado Supreme Court on Wednesday, it states the 11th Judicial District Attorney’s Office deliberately failed to turn over evidence.

According to its court response, the AG’s Office found the majority of the evidence was either in law enforcement’s or the DA’s possession and could have been given to the defense on time. The Fremont County Court handed down four separate orders, requesting the prosecution give evidence to the defense, yet all four orders were ignored, Tunink said.

“The prosecution was aware of its failed discovery practices that existed before this case, and it took no efforts to rectify those practices,” Tunink said in his response.

It’s why former Pueblo County Chief Judge Dennis Maes said he would have handed down the same sanction as Turner.

“Had I been on the record a number of times telling perhaps the same district attorney's office, ‘You got to get things cleared up,’ and they didn't do it and they had an ample offer, I don't know that I would necessarily not do what Judge Turner did,” Maes said.

Maes said Turner followed the law and made a decision based on the evidence presented. However, he said there is a case for the other side that the sanctions came too early. It’s an argument Stanley made in her appeal, objecting to the court’s authority to reduce charges for those violations before a preliminary hearing was scheduled.

Former DA May thought the sanctions were extreme given the case was still in the early stages.

“That's probably what the Supreme Court is looking at now is, ‘Wow, that's a really extraordinary sanction this early in the proceedings,’” May said. “‘Is that appropriate in this case or has the judge abused their discretion?’”