The Sunday Denver Post published an OpEd, "A reason to kill the death penalty in Colorado," by David A. Lane, a prominent Denver attorney.
Two weeks ago, former Texas prosecutor Ken Anderson began serving a jail sentence for having hidden evidence of innocence in a Texas death penalty case resulting in the wrongful conviction of an innocent man.
That same week, the Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court in Lincoln County which threw out the first-degree murder conviction of David Bueno because deputy district attorneys Rich Orman and Dan May failed to turn over compelling evidence of Bueno's innocence to the public defenders representing him. Even worse, the whole time they were sitting on evidence of Bueno's innocence, they were doing everything in their power to kill him, having sought the death penalty against him and his co-defendant, Alejandro Perez, whom I represented.
The opinion from the court sets forth the facts in detail. In a nutshell, the prosecutors had compelling evidence that others besides Bueno and Perez may have killed a fellow prison inmate, and they failed to turn this over to the defense.
At the time they were violating their solemn oaths as prosecutors to "seek justice" and at the same time violating the law by not disclosing evidence of innocence, they were working for Carol Chambers, the only prosecutor in Colorado who was wildly in love with the death penalty. May is now the elected DA in El Paso County and Orman is busy trying to see James Holmes executed.
One correction, the Texas case referred to, the case of Michael Morton, was not a death penalty case.
Earlier coverage from Colorado begins at the link. Related posts are in the prosecutorial misconduct category index.
Comments