Linda Stanley, the District Attorney for the 11th Judicial District, had her law license suspended Wednesday for failing to comply with continuing legal education requirements.
Jessica Yates of the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel said about 100 attorneys had CLE-related licensure suspensions Wednesday.
"That came about when they did not meet the Jan. 31 deadline for turning in their CLE credits," she said. "We then sent notices repeatedly reminding all of the attorneys; the CLE committee of the court met, reviewed the list and certified the list to the court. The court then acted on those recommendations and ordered the suspensions."
Yates said it is "very uncommon" for a district attorney to have a law license suspended in this manner, but Stanley's licensure won't affect the licensures of the other attorneys in her office.
"They can still appear in court and file documents in court," she said.
Yates said if Stanley has taken the credits and simply failed to report them, she could fill that out fairly quickly and get it to the OARC to act on. If she has not taken the credits, she then must find CLE classes to take to get those credits.
According to the Colorado Supreme Court's Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel, if an attorney does not meet the Dec. 31 deadline, they can apply for an extension by Jan. 31. They also must submit a make-up plan.
The 11th Judicial District includes Fremont, Chaffee, Custer and Park counties. Stanley was sworn into office in January 2021 but did not receive endorsements from three of the sheriffs in her district.
During the election campaign in 2020, the Daily Record asked Stanley in a Q&A format how she would guide the District Attorney's Office during controversial cases that may be in the spotlight.
"Be a leader," she responded. "Don't pass off that responsibility to anyone else. The District Attorney should be the one in the courtroom handling those 'controversial cases.'"
However, Ed Norden, who began reporting in March on the Barry Morphew murder trial, perhaps one of Chaffee County's most publicized murder cases, said Stanley "basically was MIA from court proceedings since the preliminary hearing."
Morphew was accused of killing his wife, Suzanne, after she disappeared from the couple's Chaffee County home two years ago.
Ed Norden: Prosecution missteps in Morphew murder case
"But in my 40 years of covering court proceedings typically the local DA would still be at the table in such a high-profile case that attracted national attention," Norden wrote in a column that was submitted to the Daily Record. "Stanley basically was MIA from court proceedings since the preliminary hearing. She then appeared April 19 with the full prosecution team to announce that charges were being dismissed."
From the day DA Stanley announced Barry Morphew's arrest, Norden said, through the preliminary hearing last July, and through the series of motions hearings in Cañon City, "the prosecution was plagued by missteps."
"No doubt, Judge Ramsey Lama's ruling to prohibit expert testimony from 14 of the state's witnesses hamstrung the state's ability to present its case. Stanley's motion to dismiss said that the judge excluded the state's best evidence to move forward by severely limiting expert testimony," Norden wrote. "Those problems were of the prosecution's own doing by repeatedly failing to turn over discovery evidence to defense attorneys in a timely manner. Judge Lama called it 'reckless and a pattern of neglect.'"
Norden said that there were other red flags.
"Stanley created her own problems when she was reprimanded by the court for doing an interview with a Profiling Evil podcast last year violating a court order not to discuss the case publicly," he wrote. "She claimed she never specifically discussed the investigation."
That wasn't her first reprimand by the court.
in May 2019, Stanley was issued a Colorado Supreme Court Attorney Regulatory Counsel public censure after she agreed to represent a client in a civil case in February 2017 but eight days later accepted employment as a hearing officer for the Colorado Department of Revenue. According to the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel, Stanley did not advise the client that she left private practice.
"Stanley attempted to withdraw from the client's case but her filing was rejected due to errors in the caption and an improper form," the conditional admission of misconduct states. "She tried that same month to file another motion to withdraw, but that motion too was rejected, this time because she had filed it in the wrong court. She did not successfully file a motion to withdraw until August 2017."
The Daily Record has asked Stanley for a comment but has not received a response at this time.
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