There is no individual elected official that has been a subject of more Chronicle editorials over the last 12 years than Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey. He is term limited and will be turning over the reins of office to soon to be septuagenarian Beth McCann this next month.
Mr. Morrissey is admittedly something of a mystery to us. He is intelligent, highly articulate and strikingly handsome which are attributes he shares with Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler. When he came into office in January 2005 we had high hopes for him and his office.
His immediate predecessor as DA, Bill Ritter, went on to become governor of Colorado and there was no reason to think that Morrissey might not successfully follow that path to higher office.
There have been no scandals to speak of at the Denver DA’s office during his entire 12-year tenure for which Morrissey can be justifiably proud. Moreover, he has at times had the courage to do such things as his extremely sharp edged attack on presiding Denver County Court Judge John Marcucci and his brethren for turning Denver into the heroin capital of the West as highlighted on the front page of this month’s Chronicle.
But conversely from the beginning up until today there has been a constant barrage of legal and public relations gaffes that are extraordinary.
By way of example, we were aghast when he decided in 2008 to criminally prosecute Skinner Middle School Principal Nicole Veltze for failure to notify the police over incidental touching in a classroom, although she suspended the children involved. He assigned his two top assistants to bring three charges against the poor school administrator which brought howls from the local media.
County Court Judge Doris E. Burd threw out all charges against Veltze saying there was absolutely no evidence that the school principal acted willfully and wantonly to thwart the law. Amazingly Morrissey then went after Judge Burd saying that his office was very surprised and concerned by the ruling and just might appeal.
To prove he never was able to grasp the old saying that “if you find yourself in a hole stop digging” Morrissey then went personally to the editorial board of the now defunct Rocky Mountain News to attempt to prevent them from issuing an editorial castigating him. He told its editorial board that state law required him to bring the charges. The editorial board found his arguments ludicrous and issued one of the most damning editorials about a Denver DA in living memory.
To demonstrate he has learned nothing in his 12 years in office he just recently decided to bring to trial Clarence Moses-EL for rape charges. Moses-EL had been convicted back in 1987 for beating and raping a woman in his Five Points neighborhood. His conviction was based almost solely on the testimony of the victim saying that it had come to her in a dream that Moses-EL was the one who raped her. She had previously said that she could not identify her assailant because of the beating, but that the person had a toupee and was either “LC, Earl or Darnell.” Moses-EL did not have a toupee nor was one of the men named.
There was significant evidence containing DNA collected by the Denver Police but that field of science was just in its infancy and no tests were performed. Moses-EL was sentenced to 48 years in prison. Moses-EL steadfastly denied he was guilty even after the verdict
When the field of DNA advanced to the point that the evidence gathered could, in fact, be tested Moses pleaded with the DA’s office and the state to perform the tests, but they refused saying they did not have enough money. Eventually Moses-EL, with the help of fellow prisoners, scrapped together enough money to have the tests performed but once again the DA’s office and the state refused. With help of pro bono attorneys, a court finally ordered Denver to perform the tests.
Unbelievably it turned out Denver had destroyed all of the DNA evidence relating to the Moses-EL case. LC Jackson, one of the men who the victim originally said was a possible assailant, confessed to the crime but later recanted, then reconfessed and then recanted.
A Denver District Court found enough evidence “to allow a jury to probably return a verdict of acquittal in favor of the Defendant” and allowed Moses-EL a new trial. Everyone assumed the case was over, but Morrissey decided to go after Moses-EL. To cover his tracks, Morrissey attempted to get Moses-EL to plead guilty to various lesser charges in return for the DA’s office recommending he be released for time served. Moses-EL said he would never plead guilty to a crime he had not committed even if it meant he would spend the rest of his life in prison.
The NAACP brought to the court a petition signed by 2,000 prominent Denverites asking that he not be forced to go through a second trial. The Denver Post wrote a blistering editorial pleading that Moses-EL not be retried. Beth McCann stated that if Morrissey would not take any action until she was in office she would not retry Moses-EL. Apparently, none of that mattered to the tone deaf Morrissey. As in the Veltze case he brought his top aide Chief Deputy Bonnie Benedetti to try the case.
On November 14, 2016, a 12-person Denver jury after only three hours of actual deliberation found Moses-EL not guilty on all charges to the tumultuous cheers of the community. At age 60 Moses-EL was finally free after 28 years of wrongful confinement for a crime he never committed.
As we noted earlier, both Morrissey and Arapahoe DA George Brauchler are highly intelligent individuals, but Brauchler has one attribute that Morrissey has demonstrated time after time he badly lacks — judgment.
An extraordinary lack of judgment is why Mitch Morrissey should never again be elected or appointed to any office of public trust, notwithstanding his many gifts. The Veltze and Moses-EL cases demonstrate he simply cannot be trusted to do the right thing when it truly counts.
— Editorial Board