Court joins investigation of Columbine meeting

Probe to eye actions of five attorneys

Rocky Mountain News

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

The Colorado Supreme Court has assigned an investigator to look into a Columbine couple's complaint against five attorneys who attended a meeting in April 1999 about a draft warrant to search killer Eric Harris' home.

The draft was written more than a year before the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.

Among the lawyers named in the complaint was Jefferson County District Attorney Dave Thomas.

That draft search warrant was written in the spring of 1998 after Randy and Judy Brown complained to Jefferson County sheriff's investigators about Harris' violent Internet writings. But the warrant was never completed or executed, and after the April 20, 1999, attack on the school, it was withheld from the public until early 2001, when a judge ordered its release.

A report issued earlier this year by a state grand jury raised questions about a "private meeting" held a few days after the Columbine shootings that involved top Jefferson County officials. The draft affidavit was discussed at that meeting, and the grand jury concluded that based on the discussion there, Jefferson County sheriff's officials withheld it from the public.

The Browns alleged in their complaint that Thomas, then-Jefferson County Attorney Frank Hutfless, assistant county attorneys Bill Tuthill and Lily Oeffler, and assistant district attorney Kathy Sasak violated the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct by keeping the draft affidavit from the families of those killed and injured at the school.

They cited a rule that prohibits attorneys from obstructing access to potential evidence in a lawsuit.