FORT COLLINS, Colo.—Northern Colorado voters appear to have ousted two state judges who were the prosecutors in a botched murder case.
Unofficial results reported by the Fort Collins Coloradoan on Wednesday show voters choosing not to retain Judges Terry Gilmore and Jolene Blair. Their ouster comes amid a failed statewide effort to oust three state Supreme Court justices and two members of the Court of Appeals by a group called Clear The Bench.
Gilmore and Blair were the prosecutors in 1999 when Timothy Masters was convicted of murder and sentenced to life without parole. They later became state judges for Larimer and Jackson counties and had been retained once before.
Masters’ conviction was overturned in 2008 after new DNA tests failed to put him at the scene of Peggy Hettrick’s slaying in 1987. Her slaying remains unsolved.
“I think the voters have spoken,” Masters told the Coloradoan on Tuesday night. “And it wouldn’t have gone down this way if (Gilmore and Blair) had squared up and said, ‘We’re sorry.'”
Both judges declined request by The Associated Press for interviews. Their terms expire Jan. 11, 2011.
They become the eighth and ninth judges ousted by voters since 1988. A tenth judge, Baca County Judge W. Michael Porter, faces a tight race for retention in southeastern Colorado.
Gilmore and Blair were both censured by the Supreme Court’s Office of Attorney Regulation in September 2008. The censure, which amounts to a public rebuke, faulted Blair and Gilmore for failing to ensure that Masters’ defense attorneys received evidence that could have prove his innocence, but found that it wasn’t intentional.
Fort Collins police detective Jim Broderick, the lead detective in the case, faces perjury charges. He denies any wrongdoing.
Masters received $10 million from Fort Collins, Larimer County and their insurance companies to settle a wrongful imprisonment lawsuit. Records showed Masters contributed $3,000 to a group working to unseat Gilmore and Blair, according to campaign finance filings.
“Their job has a big influence on people’s lives, so when they make a mistake I think that the repercussions should have a big influence on their lives,” said Larimer County voter Josh Johnson, 35.
In Larimer County, street signs calling for their removal rivaled the amount of signs for the state’s big ticket contests, such as the hotly contested race for U.S. Senate.
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Information from: Fort Collins Coloradoan,
