DA to world: Never mind

Why didn't they pursue hard evidence first?

Published August 29, 2006 at midnight

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When Mary Lacy, then Mary Keenan, was re-elected Boulder district attorney two years ago, her only opponent was a write-in candidate. Never mind her disgraceful performance in the University of Colorado recruiting scandals (more on that in a moment). Virtually the entire legal establishment in the district simply gave her a pass.

Will that establishment again remain silent now that Lacy has once more embarrassed her office and community with a baffling misjudgment?

We say "baffling" misjudgment because we await further explanation today as to why investigators didn't discreetly try to verify the likelihood of John Mark Karr's story before obtaining an arrest warrant initiating the chain of events culminating in his detention in Thailand.

In Monday's motion to quash the arrest, the DA acknowledges that attempts to interview people "who might have information about Mr. Karr's past" did not begin until after his arrest. Haste was necessary, the motion implies, because Karr had taken a job teaching young children and because authorities were "able to confirm that he was having personal involvement with at least one of the girls \[he had met at the new school and whom] he had previously identified as the target of his personal and sexual interest."

The first blanket reason cannot be taken seriously. A few days' wait while authorities quietly checked out Karr's past was not going to jeopardize the students; in any case, since when is it the Boulder DA's job to take pre-emptive action against sexual predators living in Thailand?

As for the second reason, what does Lacy mean by his "personal involvement" with the girl? Why couldn't Thai authorities have been asked to keep an eye on him?

Two years ago, we recounted in an editorial titled "Keenan amateur hour" the district attorney's inexcusable attempt to smear a former friend by wondering aloud whether the woman had told the truth in a deposition on the CU football recruiting scandal. Earlier that year, another editorial detailed how the district attorney had been unable in her own deposition on the CU case to cite any significant facts justifying her indignant claim that the athletic department used women as sexual bait.

Yet despite our highly critical attitude toward Lacy spanning more than two years, we never expected the magnitude of this latest debacle. When the Boulder DA announced the arrest of Karr two weeks ago, we assumed that her office must have some evidence seemingly linking him to the case beyond an otherwise useless confession. Karr might not be the killer, of course, but surely no DA would create an international furor without something more credible to fall back upon than a sexual predator's word.

Incredibly, that was it: Lacy had nothing meaningful, just Karr's useless word. And yet when she held her odd press conference announcing the arrest, in which she congratulated a lengthy list of law enforcement officials for their assistance, she only hinted at the frail nature of the case.

Lacy has not always been so reticent. Back in April 2002 when she announced she would not be filing sexual assault charges against football players and recruits accused of gang-raping a student, the DA pointedly called the young woman a "hero" and a "victim" while insisting that the failure to prosecute was no reflection on the accuser's credibility.

In short, the DA proclaimed the men's guilt even as she announced she would not prosecute them.

Once again she has left observers - this time extending to the four corners of the globe - shaking their heads in disgusted wonder. Will there be no end to the pratfalls in Boulder?

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