Suthers writes book on attorneys general of Colorado's past

'People's Lawyer' recounts stories of colorful state

By Ed Sealover , The Gazette

Published December 26, 2007 at 12:30 a.m.

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John Suthers finishes third book on the history of an office he's held.

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Colorado Attorney General John Suthers doesn't confine himself to writing legal arguments and opinions on state laws. The former 4th Judicial District attorney has a bit of the historian in him, as well.

Suthers recently finished his third book on the history of an office he has held.

This book dates to 1861 with the seating of Colorado's first territorial attorney general.

Suthers also has written a book on white-collar crime and is set to release a nonfiction work next year that looks at the American criminal-justice system from a prosecutor's point of view.

While that manuscript will be found in bookstores, it will be a bit tougher for Coloradans to get their hands on the 141-page book about the 36 men and one woman who have served as the top legal officer for the state.

The People's Lawyer: The History of the Colorado Attorney General's Office, coming out in early 2008, will be distributed to staffers and former staffers in the attorney general's office, libraries and the state archives.

Suthers' purpose wasn't to get rich - he has to pay the publisher to print the manuscript - but to set down in one place the 146 years of stories and traditions that have marked his office, a project he says will be particularly rewarding for his employees.

Issues haven't changed

Suthers, of Colorado Springs, also said that working on the book helped him pass the weeknights in Denver away from his family.

"You walk into these institutions that have been around for an awful long time . . . and I think it's important for the employees to understand you're part of something that's bigger than any one person," Suthers said.

To write the book, Suthers appointed a voluntary committee of 10 people from his office who pored through records at the Colorado Historical Society and the Denver Public Library.

He and committee members also interviewed staffers and attorneys general dating to John Moore, who held office in 1973 and 1974.

He discovered that many issues haven't changed over the past 100 years; the attorney general still fights to protect Colorado's water rights and is dealing with issues such as parolee voting, which attorneys general also dealt with in the 1940s.

Favorite characters

The book spends time recounting some of Suthers' favorite characters.

There is Samuel Browne, the state's second territorial attorney general who tried to investigate John Chivington in the killing of prisoners shortly before Chivington ordered the Sand Creek Massacre.

There also is Eugene Engley, a populist attorney general who served in 1893 and 1894 and recommended, among other things, that the state abolish the prison system and replace it with a hospital for the treatment of criminals.

Suthers wrote similar accounts of the history of the 4th Judicial District Attorney's Office and the Colorado U.S. Attorney's Office when he held those posts.

Though he admits "this is the kind of reading that not everyone's going to find fascinating," he thinks it will add some detail about the office to the state's volume of historical research.

The writing bug doesn't seem to be biting other attorneys general.

A spokeswoman for the National Association of Attorneys General said she knows of no other attorneys general working on histories of their offices.

Terri Connell, Suthers' assistant who coordinated the research team and is listed as his co-author, said it is exciting to take a fresh look at the office.

"You hear about maybe a governor here, a governor there, something's named after somebody," Connell said.

"But you dig into these people's lives, and you just see history being built."

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