http://www.dailycamera.com/opinion/...075/conversation-stan-garnett-litigator-moves
A conversation with Stan Garnett: The litigator moves on
'People in Boulder need to get out more.'
03/03/2018
Q: I can't let a Boulder DA leave the office without asking about the JonBenét Ramsey case. You came in long after all of that had happened, and there are still people, I still get letters . . .
A: So do I. I got two this morning.
Q: I know you've done this, but on the occasion of your departure from the DA's office, can you explain to the people of Boulder why that case was never resolved and whether you think there's any chance that it ever will be?
A: First of all, I don't think there's much chance. It's possible, but the issues, and a lot of times the public doesn't understand this, but for a district attorney, all that matters is what's the evidence. We have to have evidence that is strong and establishes clearly a theory that can be proven against a particular person. We don't have that in Ramsey. I don't think we ever will.
I've talked a lot about Ramsey. I studied Ramsey very closely before I took office and many of the changes that I made in the office early on, and I think I did a guest opinion on this several years ago, were tied to what I felt had gone wrong on Ramsey.
So here's why I think it wasn't solved. The first problem was really bad relations between the DA's office and the police department. You have to have strong relations. People have to trust each other; they have to work well together. The police need to make sure they're consulting with the district attorney the minute they find out about a major crime. In that era in the DA's office, you did not have that. As a matter of fact, you had a lot of distrust between the two.
The second thing was that Ramsey happened at a time in the DA's office where there was not a focus on going to trial and on handling trial. In fact, there was a lot of hesitancy about going to trial. Interesting data is that between 1991 and I think 2000, there were a couple of dozen homicides but not one homicide trial in that period of time. You did not have a team of people in the office who were skilled at evaluating evidence, focusing on it and know they could take a case to trial. I think that hurt.
Number three, you did not have any sophisticated grand jury capacity. You may remember in the history of the Ramsey case, one of the oddest parts was that it took forever to convene a grand jury. I think it was almost two years after the murder before a grand jury was convened. The reason for that in part was because (former District Attorney) Alex Hunter in that era did not have lawyers on staff who knew how to use a grand jury. Boulder County is a large enough county to have a statutory right to a standing grand jury, but they never used it in those days. Now, we have several lawyers that work with the grand jury all the time. We want to make sure that we can do that.
And the final point with Ramsey that can't be lost was that there were real mistakes made at the crime scene in terms of preservation of evidence, decisions about interrogating witnesses that were mishandled, somewhat by the police, some would say due to the advice of the district attorney. I wasn't there, I'm not sure exactly. But at a crime scene like that, if you don't, a) realize it's a crime scene, b) preserve the evidence you've got, c) separate and interview separately the witnesses involved, including the parents, if you don't do that right then, there's almost nothing you can do going forward.
And you know, I get, all the time, I'm sure you do as well in the press, letters, emails from people around the world who have theories about the Ramsey case. What they don't understand is theories are not helpful. What we need is specific evidence that clearly proves a particular crime against a particular person. So that's what I think happened.
Now, one of the things that the Boulder police have done is, after Ramsey, when Mark Beckner became chief, he put Joe Pelle in charge of the investigations unit in the Boulder Police Department. That was totally reorganized. They created a major crimes unit and the investigative capacity of the Boulder Police is far better than it was in 1996.
Q: Given Boulder's lofty self-image, the three things that you pointed out — how to process evidence, how to interview witnesses, having litigators in a district attorney's office — they all seem like no-brainers. I know you weren't in office yet, but do you have a theory? How could a community of this alleged sophistication have none of those abilities?
A: Well, one of the reasons I ran for DA was the lack of trial experience in the office always puzzled me and I felt strongly about it. I decided the best thing to do was to run the office.
Q: Did you ever get an answer why that was?
A: Yeah, I think if you're not going to trial a lot, it's easy to get scared of going to trial. Plea bargains are always easier than going to trial — always, every frickin' time. The office had a couple of tough homicide cases in the 1980s that they lost and I think that kind of spooked the staff. One of the things I've always been very clear on with my deputies is we don't keep track of win-loss records. If you ethically have the evidence and you take a case to trial, we live with whatever the result is. I've never criticized any of my staff in the hundreds of trials we've had, which we've won most of them, but if they get a not-guilty verdict, that's the voice of the community, it is what it is. I don't think that was the sense in the community at the time.
I think there was also a fair amount of cynicism in the office about juries. I'm a real supporter of the jury process. I think it works great. You can convince yourself as a prosecutor because you have so much power that you can make better decisions than a jury will, and you can do that through the plea bargain. If you take the case to trial, that's what you get.
And then the final thing is going to trial is a lot of work. We've got these people getting ready for the homicide trials this year; we've had a number of sex assault trials already. If the community knew how hard those people worked getting ready to go to trial, and then in trial, they would be very impressed. I mean, people work around the clock. It's very intense. And if you don't want to work that hard, it's easy to plea bargain a case.