Eleventh Judicial District Attorney Linda Stanley will be disbarred for ethical violations on the job, a Colorado disciplinary board ruled Tuesday.
State disciplinary authorities found Stanley made inappropriate comments to the media during the high-profile prosecution of Barry Morphew, did not adequately supervise the prosecution of the case, caused numerous discovery violations, initiated a baseless investigation into the judge on the case and made inappropriate comments to the media in an unrelated case.
“Taken in totality, a majority of the Hearing Board concludes that these ethical violations warrant respondent’s disbarment,” the 83-page disciplinary order, published Tuesday, says.
The decision comes three months after Stanley faced allegations of professional misconduct during a two-week disciplinary hearing in June.
State regulators accused Stanley of making inappropriate comments to members of the media and on a YouTube true-crime show when she prosecuted Morphew for the murder of his wife in 2020, among other misconduct.
Stanley argued her conduct was within the bounds of ethical rules and that the allegations against her were baseless.
The Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel, which handles attorney discipline for professional misconduct, brought the allegations against Stanley in October, and the case proceeded all the way to a public disciplinary hearing, which is highly unusual for a sitting district attorney.
Much of the disciplinary hearing centered on Stanley’s handling of the case against Barry Morphew, who she charged with murder in 2021, a year after his wife, Suzanne Morphew, 49, disappeared from the family’s Chaffee County home on May 10, 2020.
Stanley dropped all charges against Morphew in 2022. He has maintained his innocence and is not facing any charges in connection with his wife’s death. State attorneys argued during the disciplinary hearing that the prosecution was a “debacle” because of Stanley’s poor leadership.
Investigators in September discovered Suzanne Morphew’s body in a shallow grave near Moffat, and a coroner later determined her death to be a homicide, finding she died with a cocktail of animal tranquilizers in her body. The investigation into Suzanne’s killing is now being handled by 12th Judicial District Attorney Anne Kelly, since her body was found in that jurisdiction.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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