El Paso County DAs Under Investigation

A May 5 column by the Denver Post's Susan Greene came to my attention today. It's lead is:

The state is investigating El Paso County DAs for withholding evidence in the case against Tim Kennedy.

Greene goes on to say, "According to people familiar with the probe, the state Supreme Court is looking at why prosecutors sat on a letter that could have raised doubts about Kennedy's guilt when they tried him for murder."

In yesterday's blog entry I mentioned that we've not heard if the DA's office was considering disciplinary action against the prosecutor responsible for withholding the evidence in questions: a letter from an alternate suspect that Judge Kane had previously ruled “contains language that could be interpreted as solicitation of perjury” as well as “an admission to involvement in the murders."

It turns out that the prosecutor who withheld that letter originally and continued to withhold it this past winter is the same person who continues as Kennedy's lead prosecutor.

So why does the District Attorney continue to assign Kennedy's prosecution to the same person who's already under an ethics investigation for misconduct in prosecuting Kennedy?

Wouldn't common sense call for assigning the prosecution of Kennedy to someone without a personal interest in the case's outcome? Why not reassign the prosecution to someone who can pursue truth without being encumbered by an understandable desire to save face? Can we trust the person who withheld such crucial evidence to pursue truth in the upcoming retrial of Kennedy?

District Attorney Dan May should explain his answers to these questions.