Lawyers for Barry Morphew, husband of missing Colorado mom Suzanne Morphew, say prosecutors withheld evidence

Attorneys for a Colorado man as soon as charged with homicide and nonetheless thought of a suspect within the presumed dying of his lacking spouse are asking for prosecutors to be disciplined for what they known as deliberately withholding proof in a bid to convict him.

Barry Morphew’s attorneys allege in a criticism made public Tuesday that District Legal professional Linda Stanley and 6 prosecutors in her workplace pursued “a political agenda of locking up Mr. Morphew in response to a media frenzy that prosecutors themselves helped create” after the 2020 disappearance of Suzanne Morphew.

The criticism was filed final month with Colorado’s Workplace of Regulatory Counsel, almost a 12 months after Stanley’s workplace requested that the costs towards Morphew be dropped shortly earlier than he was to have confronted trial. He had additionally been charged with tampering with a human physique, tampering with bodily proof, possession of a harmful weapon and trying to affect a public servant.

Of their criticism, Morphew’s attorneys are asking for the prosecutors to face punishment as much as and together with disbarment. They stated a choice was made to arrest Morphew in 2021 despite the fact that DNA from an unknown male was present in Suzanne Morphew’s SUV. Additionally they cited Stanley’s appearances on true crime podcasts equivalent to “Profiling Evil” to speak concerning the case.

“She should not be allowed to prosecute anybody else,” one in every of Morphew’s attorneys, Iris Eytan, stated of Stanley throughout a information convention known as to announce the criticism. She additionally stated she was launching a non-profit group to struggle prosecutorial misconduct.

The criticism was filed final month with Colorado’s Workplace of Regulatory Counsel. The workplace had opened an investigation into Stanley final 12 months due to complaints arising from the Morphew prosecution, and the attorneys’ criticism will now grow to be a part of that investigation, legal professional regulation counsel Jessica Yates stated.

She stated she couldn’t disclose whose issues had prompted the investigation.

Final 12 months, Stanley’s workplace requested a decide to permit the case towards Morphew to be dropped after he barred prosecutors from utilizing most of their key witnesses for repeatedly failing to following guidelines for turning over proof within the man’s favor, together with DNA proof linked to sexual assault instances in different states that raised the opportunity of a special particular person being concerned. The decide allowed the case to be dismissed with out prejudice, which supplies prosecutors the power to file prices towards Morphew once more later.

Stanley was in court docket on Tuesday, in accordance with her workplace, and didn’t instantly return a phone name searching for remark. Nevertheless, one other prosecutor within the workplace, Mark Hurlbert, who’s a kind of named within the criticism, stated he had not seen it but.

“We’ll struggle it vigorously as a result of we did nothing flawed,” he stated.

Morphew remains to be thought of a suspect within the case, Hurlbert stated, and he added that prosecutors will hold an “open thoughts” because the investigation into what occurred continues.

Final 12 months, Stanley stated the exclusion of the witnesses was solely a part of the rationale she requested for the costs to be dropped. She emphasised that investigators wanted extra time to search out Suzanne Morphew’s physique, saying for the primary time that investigators imagine her stays are in an space coated deep in snow close to the couple’s former residence within the southern Colorado mountains.

Nevertheless, at a later court docket listening to, Hurlbert informed a decide that they have been flawed about being near discovering the physique, KUSA-TV reported in October.

The listening to was held to debate returning Morphew’s property seized as proof however prosecutors argued towards that, Eytan stated, in case these belongings are wanted as a part of the investigation some day.

Eytan stated she “100% believes” that Morphew is harmless.

So do Barry Morphew’s two grownup daughters, who stated in an interview final 12 months they don’t imagine he had something to do with their mom’s disappearance.

“We simply know our dad higher than anybody else and we all know he was not concerned in our mother’s disappearance,” Mallory Morphew informed ABC’s “Good Morning America” within the interview, as her sister Macy nodded in an settlement. Barry Morphew sat between them, holding their palms.

“I simply love my ladies and I really like my spouse. I simply need her to be discovered,” Barry Morphew stated of his spouse.

Final July, Barry Morphew pleaded responsible to forgery for casting his spouse’s 2020 election poll for then-President Donald Trump.