The murder of Suzanne Morphew, who disappeared from her home in Maysville, Colorado, on Mother’s Day in 2020, remains unsolved.
DENVER (CN) — A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a widower’s claims against a local sheriff’s department and prosecutors who pursued murder charges against him after his wife disappeared in 2020.
“For all its infuriating flaws then, the prosecution of plaintiff was not unlawful,” wrote U.S. District Judge Daniel Domenico in a 33-page order. “His Section 1983 claims for malicious prosecution, fabrication of evidence, Franks violations, conspiracy, failure to intervene, and Monell liability must be dismissed on the basis of the existence of probable cause.”
Barry Morphew’s wife, Suzanne, disappeared from their home in Maysville, Colorado, on Mother’s Day in 2020. Chaffee County sheriffs arrested Morphew more than a year later in May 2021 and held him until he posted bond four months later. The charges against Morphew were dismissed in April 2022, just before a scheduled trial.
On May 2, 2023, Morphew sued Chaffee County, along with its sheriff’s department, the 11th Judicial District Attorney’s office and more than a dozen individuals who investigated the case and contributed to a faulty arrest affidavit. Morphew asked the court to award $15 million in damages and order law enforcement to release his property — including family photos and expensive hunting scopes.
At a motions hearing in August, attorneys representing Chaffee County and the defendants argued seven separate motions to dismiss six claims, all of which Domenico granted. In dismissing the case, however, Domenico maintained that the defendants’ actions were wrong even if civil court doesn’t offer a remedy.
“But the question for this court isn’t whether the decision to arrest plaintiff was wise or whether the government would have been able to prove its case to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt,” the Donald Trump appointee wrote. “The question is whether arresting and prosecuting him at that time was unlawful. That depends on whether law enforcement had probable cause to arrest and charge him for his wife’s murder, which is a significantly different inquiry.”
Probable cause, Domenico explained, lies somewhere between the “beyond a reasonable doubt standard” needed for a conviction and well above “bare suspicion.” After rebuilding the arrest affidavit with misleading evidence omitted, Domenico found the document still could have supported Morphew’s arrest.
“Accepting, as I must at this stage of the case, that plaintiff’s allegations are true, there remains ample reason to find probable cause that he was involved in the murder of his wife,” Domenico wrote.
While the state disciplinary board disbarred 11th Judicial District Attorney Linda Stanley over Morphew’s prosecution earlier this month, Domenico found she was entitled to absolute immunity along with other the prosecutors, a matter he considers well settled.
Investigators recovered Suzanne’s body in Saguache County last September, more than 100 miles south of her home, transferring jurisdiction of the case to the 12th Judicial District. Her murder remains unsolved.
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