Huerfano County Sheriff responds to court order on evidence handling
HUERFANO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) -- Huerfano County Sheriff Bruce Newman says his office is following the rules when it comes to handing evidence to the 3rd Judicial District Attorney's Office.
A little over a week ago, a district court judge ordered the Huerfano County Sheriff's Office to hand over discovery and maintain evidence in a way that follows state law, following a complaint made by District Attorney Henry Solano.
Solano said he had to dismiss cases because the sheriff's office violated rule 16 of the Criminal Rules and Procedure of Colorado, which states mandatory discovery material must be provided to defense counsel within 21 days of a first appearance in court.
Newman pushed back on the extent of the cases dropped.
“Everybody has to follow rule 16 -- did we fall back a little bit on some of our discovery? Yes," Sheriff Bruce Newman told KRDO. "I know Mr. Solano claims that 70% of our discovery was late and yet with the evidence that he presented we were able to discredit it. We got it closer to about 20%.”
However, the judge's ruling said there were voluminous amounts of evidence showing the delays impaired the district attorney's office. Records show from Jan. 2019 to July 2021, the sheriff's office took 30 or more days in about 39% of cases.
Newman claims that the district attorney's office isn't fulfilling its role, and he said about 70% of all cases have been dismissed by Solano, but the district attorney disputed on that number.
"We have people that we arrest regularly, and they laugh they say, 'I don’t care that you caught me. The DA isn’t going to do anything to me anyhow.' It’s very frustrating to me and every officer doing their job,” Newman said.
Solano says the sheriff is conflating the numbers, and that while a large number of misdemeanor cases were dismissed due to a lack of funding, few felony cases were. At the same time, Solano said 27 felony-level cases have been dismissed since he took office in 2017 due to the sheriff's office's issues with evidence.
But Newman claims that Solano's office is properly funded, and he says the court case cost taxpayers money for something his office "already has to do."
