Colorado lawyer James Henry Mosley, who died Saturday at age 87, practiced law for more than six decades, including serving as a district attorney in Craig shortly after beginning his career as a lawyer.
Born and raised in Colorado, he graduated as head boy at Manual High School in Denver, and earned his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Denver.
He was a law-school classmate of John Love, who became governor of Colorado.
After serving as a Navy intelligence investigator during World War II, Mosley returned to Colorado.
Following a DU law professor’s advice to start his practice in a small town, Mosley went to Craig.
His clients included cattle ranchers, Greek and Basque shepherds and locals who sometimes lacked cash to pay.
On those occasions, Mosley was sometimes paid in cuts of meat wrapped in butcher’s paper.
He briefly owned a somewhat frowzy nightclub after one man signed his bar over to Mosley.
Mosley successfully ran for district attorney of Colorado’s 14th Judicial District in 1952.
He tried cases in Moffat, Grand and Routt counties and went on to become a trial lawyer at the Denver firm of Tweedy and Mosley.
In one high-profile trial, Mosley served as the court-appointed defense attorney for Delmar Dean Spooner, the target of a widespread manhunt after he shot two law officers and wounded two others in a chase across Colorado and Utah.
At the 1961 trial, Mosley and his partner, Duane Barnard, successfully argued that Spooner was insane at the time of the killings, avoiding the death penalty but guaranteeing Spooner’s lifelong imprisonment.
Well-groomed and good- looking, Mosley created an imposing presence. Mosley affably played the villain in melodramas that raised money for local Kiwanis clubs, playing Avaricious P. Skunkby and other ne’er-do-wells.
He became a master woodcarver and a talented photographer whose wildlife photographs appeared in the Colorado Lawyer, the Colorado Bar Association’s monthly magazine.
He and Mary Mosley, his wife of nearly 40 years, were active in a local basset-hound rescue group. Sarah Basset, one dog they found impossible to give up, became Mosley’s constant companion.
Besides his widow, survivors include daughters Janet Quigley of Littleton; Margaret Drake of Glen Rose, Texas; Carol Taussig of Boulder; and Anne Hepp of Montrose; sons David Mosley of Boulder; and Laird O’Rollins of Seattle; and nine grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at noon Sept. 26 at Olinger Crown Hill Chapel, 7777 W. 29th Ave., Wheat Ridge.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
