DENVER—The state Supreme Court declined to review a lower court’s ruling saying a Colorado district attorney acted properly in refusing to take the case of a woman who claimed she was raped.
The decision Monday means the Court of Appeals ruling last year will stand. That ruling said prosecutors have discretion to decide whether to file charges.
Julie Stene alleges she was raped during a high school graduation party in 2000 by two classmates, including one who was tied to a sex-and-drugs scandal at the University of Colorado the following year. Stene has agreed to have her name used publicly.
Stene initially declined to testify, and no charges were filed. She changed her mind in 2004, but the Arapahoe County district attorney’s office said it couldn’t prove her case.
“Coloradans want their prosecutors to be tough on crime, but they do not want them to be overzealous or overreaching,” Arapahoe County District Attorney Carol Chambers said Monday. “We cannot prosecute where the evidence does not support a charge.
Stene’s attorney, Baine Kerr, issued a statement Monday saying, “Julie’s upset and disappointed but considering other ways to advance the rights of crime victims that too often get the short shrift from prosecutors like Carol Chambers.”
Stene asked prosecutors again in 2007 to file charges. Chambers asked Larimer County officials to review the case and she later declined to file charges. Stene challenged the decision, and District Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr. in May ordered Chambers to name a special prosecutor to file the charges. Samour called Chambers’ decision “arbitrary” and “capricious.”
The Colorado Court of Appeals overturned the order and said prosecutors have discretion to decide what cases to pursue.
In the University of Colorado scandal, two women claimed they were raped by CU football players and recruits in December 2001 at an off-campus party. According to court documents, one of the men Stene accused was allegedly at the off-campus party the night the women claimed they were raped.
No charges were filed, but CU agreed in 2007 to pay $2.85 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the two women. The women’s lawsuit alleged CU violated federal law by fostering an environment that allowed sexual assaults to occur. The allegations led to reforms and a shake-up of the school’s top leaders.
