DENVER, Colo. — A Colorado judge has reduced first-degree murder charges and removed the entire 11th Judicial District Attorney’s Office from an ongoing prosecution after finding what the court described as an “egregious pattern of discovery violations and a lack of candor to the court,” according to a letter from Protect Ethical Prosecutors founder Iris Eytan.
Protect Ethical Prosecutors (PEP) is a self-described “nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog” organization whose mission is to build a “public case for prosecutorial accountability,” according to its open letter regarding proceedings in Colorado’s 11th Judicial District.
Judge Lauren T. Swan’s ruling centers on prosecutorial accountability. After reviewing the facts of the case, Judge Swan concluded the court “no longer has faith that [the accused] would receive a fair trial” with District Attorney Jeff Lindsey and the 11th Judicial District Attorney’s Office continuing to prosecute the case.
Eytan’s letter primarily addresses that loss of confidence. According to PEP’s website, she founded the organization with the “hope[] of ending the rampant prosecutorial misconduct she witnessed throughout her career.”
Judge Swan identified several problems with the 11th Judicial District Attorney’s Office’s handling of the case. Among them, the court found Lindsey was a “material witness to the credibility” of a key witness, placing that witness’s credibility in serious question.
The District Attorney’s Office also repeatedly told Judge Swan it was “ready for trial” despite failing to complete “ordered disclosures,” leaving the court “unable to proceed.”
According to PEP’s open letter, “This is not the first time this office’s conduct has drawn exceptional judicial and disciplinary scrutiny.” As Eytan noted, former District Attorney Linda Stanley “was disbarred by the Colorado Supreme Court for misconduct surrounding the prosecution” in a separate case.
Although Lindsey succeeded Stanley as district attorney, Eytan argued the underlying problems have continued.
“This is now a pattern,” she wrote, regardless of “the severity of the sanction” imposed.
Judge Swan reached a similar conclusion. By the “court’s count, at least 23 discovery violations have been found since Mr. Lindsey took office,” and the court found those violations “can no longer be blamed on the prior administration.”
The violations are not limited to the current prosecution. According to PEP’s letter, “the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel responded to a complaint against Lindsey” in 2024 and, while declining to impose discipline, cautioned him to “learn and fully understand” a prosecutor’s ethical responsibilities under Colorado’s Rules of Professional Conduct. Eytan argued that the failure to impose meaningful discipline before this trial was a mistake.
Eytan also said Judge Swan’s decision to “disqualify District Attorney Jeff Lindsey and the entire 11th Judicial District Attorney’s Office” from the case was “light,” considering what she described as a pattern of “egregious misconduct” spanning at least two district attorneys.
“DA Lindsey’s office suffers from a culture focused on winning convictions instead of seeking justice,” Eytan wrote, adding that “the people paying the real cost are the ones the case is supposed to serve.”
She was referring to the victims’ families, who “have gone through four trial settings and years of waiting for a resolution that,” in her view, “keeps being pushed further away because prosecutors have failed in their duty to the court.”
In Eytan’s view, the case “highlights that there are no mechanisms or deterrents to stop prosecutorial misconduct before the damage is already done” and moves the justice system further away from “a process anyone can trust.”
Judge Swan has appointed a special prosecutor to complete the prosecution. However, Eytan argued that doing so does not undo what she described as the revictimization of “the people” the “case exists to protect.”
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