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  Started by Hal Haddon and Bryan Morgan in 1976, the firm of Haddon, Morgan & Foreman launched with a team of former public defenders as its original partners. The experiences and mindsets of these former public defenders carried over into their law firm. They seemed to have a built-in radar for those who needed their help most.

  By 1996, Haddon, Morgan & Foreman had successfully represented the Eisenhower Tunnel contractors, Kiewet, on bid rigging; later in 2000, Qwest on possible criminal charges for insider information; controversial author Hunter Thompson on a sexual assault charge and a five-year-long case on the Cold War nuclear weapons research, development and production facility known as Rocky Flats and their contractors, Rockwell International and later Boeing, that resulted in a congressional investigation. The law firm also won a case in which they represented the University of Colorado related to patent fraud, and they defended professional basketball player Kobe Bryant on sexual assault charges in a case that was ultimately dismissed. The Haddon, Morgan & Foreman firm is nationally recognized.

  Bryan Morgan had worked in the Denver Public Defender’s Office for several years before he and Hal Haddon formed their own law firm in the mid 1970s. Morgan is described by his peers as extraordinarily smart, personable, utterly and painfully honest and loyal to his clients. He has described the Ramsey case as “a complete whirlpool … Things had been set into motion and were inevitably circling their way toward a certain conclusion even at the very beginning.”

  Attorneys do not usually make decisions on the guilt or innocence of their clients quickly, and sometimes never. In this case Morgan noted, “After two days with John Ramsey, [I knew] he could not possibly have done what they say happened to this child. I believed this with every instinct I had.”

  Hal Haddon started in the Public Defender’s Office in Jefferson County, Colorado, in 1970, then moved to the Denver Public Defender’s Office and was eventually the chief trial deputy of the State Public Defender’s Office. Haddon is considered an “attorney’s attorney.” He’s the attorney other lawyers hire when they need legal counsel, and he’s considered unparalleled intellectually. Haddon also cares deeply about his clients.

  Haddon came into the Ramsey case a week later than Morgan. He determined that both John and Patsy Ramsey were innocent early on. “After the first interview with John and Patsy, they did not fit as anything other than terribly emotionally injured parents,” he said. “The way their daughter was killed was consistent with parents who fly into rages and sometimes hurt their children. They did not then nor now strike me as people who would be physically assaultive with their children. John raised five children without physically disciplining them. You have to by necessity make decisions on what your clients tell you, and your instincts. I’ve been wrong on both sides of those questions before. I always re-evaluate my clients constantly. My very strong first impression is that these are not the kind of people who would hurt their child; certainly not in the ways she was savaged. That faith in them has not wavered.”

  Pat Burke was the counter to Morgan and Haddon with his prosecutorial mind. He’s also the consummate Irishman. He is effusive, tough when he needs to be, and totally devoted to the system of law and the people he represents. He had worked as an assistant city attorney in the Denver metro suburb of Lakewood and was an assistant attorney general for Colorado. He then changed roles to become an assistant federal public defender in the District of Colorado.

  Pat Burke had been invited to join Haddon, Morgan & Foreman as a partner beginning in 1997. This fact hadn’t been announced publicly because of minor details still to be worked out, but once Pat Burke became Patsy Ramsey’s attorney, he could not join the firm because that would have resulted in a conflict of interest. Patsy’s attorney until she died in 2006, Pat Burke still protects her interests related to the case as well as those of her son, Burke.

  Pat Burke said that he approached the case with an open mind, as did the other Ramsey attorneys. He soon had taken measure of his client. “There was nothing bad about Patsy Ramsey. She was smart, nice, good mom, good wife, good daughter, good sister and intelligent student. She basically was a wonderful all-around decent human being.” You can hear the affection when Burke speaks about Patsy. Their attorney-client relationship also developed into that of two trusted and respected friends. Patsy relied completely on Pat’s advice and counsel. He, along with only a few others, held her up when she broke down.

  Bynum, John’s business partner who originally hired the Ramsey defense attorneys, was the head of a highly respected Boulder law firm. He retired from the legal profession in 2002 and went on to other business ventures. He said that one reason he hasn’t gone back to the practice of law is his disillusionment with what he calls “a total betrayal by the legal system” in the Ramsey case. “The Ramseys lost their daughter [and] their reputation, and the criminal justice system did nothing,” said Mike Bynum, still disheartened.

  In April 2010, Bynum, Haddon and Morgan met with John Ramsey and me to talk about the case, now well into its second decade. While Patsy’s attorney, Pat Burke, was in court and could not attend this meeting, he was candid and forthcoming in later interviews. Taken together, all of these interviews represented the first time the Ramsey attorneys had ever spoken publicly about their insights and perspectives on the case.

  The Haddon, Morgan & Foreman firm’s style is low key. They work within the system, assure confidentiality and do not try cases in the media. This is the same approach taken by Pat Burke.

  “We’ve been criticized a lot for not engaging more with the media,” Haddon said. “That was a zero-sum game because the media had decided very early on they wanted this to be the next O. J. media sensation. I’d never seen anything like it before. I decided not to divert our attentions to playing the media game as opposed to doing what lawyers ought to do: preparing to gather and analyze the facts and determine what the legal implications are. I could have taken one hundred media calls a day, but it [would have been] to the detriment of doing whatever I could for the Ramseys.”

  Haddon normally speaks in a calm voice, but when discussing the Ramseys he was exactingly soft spoken. Even though the attorneys kept the family from being indicted by the Boulder district attorney because of their relentless insistence that he adhere to the law, Haddon carries a heavy burden because he and the others were unable to repair the family’s reputation. His measured cadence reflected his deliberate control while talking about extraordinarily difficult circumstances that still affect him greatly.

  Throughout the case, the attorneys prepared as though, at any moment, a Ramsey family member would be charged. They hired handwriting experts, organized an investigative staff, conducted hundreds of interviews. They tried to be as ready as they could to defend their clients without the benefit of knowing what information the police had. Since the Ramseys had not been charged or arrested, their lawyers weren’t given access to such material. The Ramsey lawyers knew, however, that the case was focused on one or both of their clients. They prepared for trial as best they could without the benefit of “discovery,” the legal requirement that the prosecutor must provide all evidence to the defense after an arrest has been made.

  Within weeks of JonBenét’s murder, the Ramsey lawyers hired a public relations representative to handle the onslaught of media requests for information on the case. Haddon reflects, “I think, in hindsight, it was a mistake to hire anyone to deal with the media because the media simply took that as an excuse to postulate that they were somehow being manipulated. But the media storm that consumed this case began really before any lawyers were fully engaged.”

  The Ramsey lawyers all agreed the most frustrating part for them was the fact that there was very little they could do make things “right” for their clients because of certain police officers and one or two prosecutors who actively leaked information, most of it false, to the media in order to set in motion the whisper and rumor campaign that terrified the family.

  Well in
to the investigation, Morgan recalls making an appointment for Haddon and him to talk with Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter about the leaks to the media. “I told Alex I knew he couldn’t control the police leaks, but the District Attorney’s Office was leaking erroneous information as well, and Hal and I were considering filing a lawsuit against the District Attorney’s Office and Boulder Police regarding leaking false information.” Both attorneys remember Hunter saying, “I could make a pretty good witness for you on that.” Morgan added, “It was an outrageous acknowledgment by the DA, yet he still wouldn’t discipline those in his office who were leaking. So the news leaks continued. With that kind of response, we, as attorneys, felt anything we tried to do to change things was futile; but we still had to try.”

  Haddon admitted that he continues to have a lot of anger about the Boulder Police Department.

  “There was and is this maniacal belief that they’re right,” he said. “They can never acknowledge what they did to this family. They won’t acknowledge that what they did was evil.”

  The Ramsey lawyers had a two-fold problem. They deeply mistrusted the commanders in charge of the investigation as well as all but a few of the attorneys in the Boulder DA’s Office. And the feelings were reciprocated. While there is always a natural animosity between prosecution and defense in any case, such natural animosity was like a campfire compared to the forest fire of dislike and mistrust that three important entities in this case—the Boulder Police Department, the Boulder District Attorney’s Office and the Ramsey defense attorneys—had for each other. From their perspective, Ramsey lawyers believed that BPD investigators, hell-bent on tailoring evidence to fit John and Patsy’s actions into their killer theory, were framing their clients.

  This relationship in particular had settled into open animosity the second day after JonBenét’s body was found, when the police commander in charge of the investigation, John Eller, demanded that the Ramseys give an interview at police headquarters or he wouldn’t return their child’s body to them. That threat lingered and smoldered and was never forgotten by the Ramsey attorneys.

  When they were interviewed for this book in April 2010, each of the Ramsey attorneys was clearly emotional still about this case. Haddon was somber and seemed to try to keep his frustrations with how the investigation was conducted hidden. Bynum had a difficult time when attempting to speak of the past.

  Morgan, his eyes brimming with tears, apologized to John Ramsey about something that had bothered him for so many years. He told John that he (Morgan) should have given the results of JonBenét’s autopsy to John alone, instead of to the entire family, especially the finding that JonBenét had been sexually assaulted.

  “I remember your reaction when I told you,” Morgan said. “You had no idea she had been sexually assaulted. I saw the look of disbelief on your face and how completely stunned and overcome by grief you were at that moment. And I’m so sorry I told you that way, John.”

  Ramsey nodded, and then froze in the memory of that long-ago moment. After an extended pause, as he seemed to sort through the layers of pain once again, he looked across the room at Morgan and responded, “It’s OK, Bryan. There was no right way to tell me. You did the best you could.”

  Despite the frustration they felt and their clients’ raw anguish, the Ramsey attorneys all remained dedicated, in part, they said, because of the character displayed by John and Patsy throughout the investigation. They said the case was critically important for them personally.

  “It’s a lawyer’s highest calling to represent somebody who is innocent, who is demonized,” said Haddon. “I don’t get attached to many clients, but I love [the Ramseys]. I appreciated then and now [that] they had more dignity in the face of outrage than anyone could have expected a human being to have.”

  CHAPTER 23

  COLORADO GOVERNORS

  Colorado Governor Roy Romer

  Colorado Governor Bill Owens

  Colorado Governor Bill Ritter.

  CHRONOLOGY

  1987 to 1999—Governor Roy Romer, a three-term Democrat, was governor when JonBenét Ramsey was murdered in 1996. He chose not to run for a fourth term.

  1999 to 2007—Republican Governor Bill Owens served two terms, from 1999 until 2007, and was term-limited out of office. He was in office during the continuing Ramsey investigation.

  2007 to 2011—Democratic Governor Bill Ritter served one term and chose not to run for a second term. Ritter had been a Denver district attorney in 1998 when he was appointed by Governor Romer to serve on a task force to advise Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter on the Ramsey murder investigation.

  PEOPLE IN THIS CHAPTER

  Trip DeMuth—Worked on the Ramsey murder investigation as a deputy district attorney in Boulder. The district attorney task force advising DA Hunter told him that Demuth must be taken off from the case. He was removed by Hunter.

  Troy Eid—Governor Owens’s chief legal counsel who served on the Governor’s District Attorney Task Force to determine if there would be a special prosecutor. Eid later became US Attorney in the District of Colorado.

  Bob Grant—Adams County district attorney who was one of four district attorneys advising DA Hunter under Governor Romer’s mandate.

  Hal Haddon—One of John Ramsey’s attorneys.

  Peter Hofstrom—Worked on the murder investigation as the chief deputy district attorney in Boulder. The Governor’s Task Force advising DA Hunter advised him that Hofstrom be removed from the case. He was removed by Hunter.

  Alex Hunter—Boulder County district attorney

  Bryan Morgan—John Ramsey’s lead attorney

  Ken Salazar—Colorado attorney general who served on the Governor’s Task Force to determine if there would be a special prosecutor. Salazar later became a US senator from Colorado and then Secretary of the Interior under the Obama administration from 2009 to 2013.

  Lou Smit—Retired Colorado Springs homicide detective hired by Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter with approval from the Boulder Police Department in order to increase experience, neutrality and professionalism on the case.

  IT WAS INEVITABLE that the Ramsey murder investigation would become the hottest political currency in Colorado. Eventually it resulted in Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter removing two of his attorneys from the case: the chief deputy DA, who was his second-in-charge, and a deputy district attorney working with others on organizing and analyzing Boulder Police Department reports.

  As weeks turned into months and months into years, the investigation into the brutal death of JonBenét Ramsey developed into a grim deadlock with pressure on all sides from higher-ups to stop the incessant bickering and resolve the case once and for all. It became a political liability for those who didn’t try to fix it, as reflected by the several newspaper editorials asking that the governor become involved.

  Governor Roy Romer (1987–1999) wanted to “fix the mess” of the investigation that was reflecting badly on Colorado. Romer’s dilemma was compounded when, in August 1998, Boulder Detective Steve Thomas, who had resigned while on medical leave, venomously blasted the investigation. “I believe the district attorney’s office is thoroughly compromised,” Thomas said. A central “Patsy did it” proponent, he shared his resignation letter with the media. It was dated August 6, 1998, which would have been JonBenét’s eighth birthday. “It is my belief the district attorney’s office has effectively crippled the case,” Thomas wrote. “The time for intervention is now.”

  Shortly afterward, Detective Lou Smit, who supported the intruder theory in the case, resigned on September 20, 1998 with a letter of explanation: “They [the BPD] are just going in the wrong direction and have been since day one of the investigation,” Smit stated.

  Romer had already sought advice from several people about what he should do to bring the fractured investigation to a satisfactory conclusion by controlling the infighting in Boulder and bringing the killer to justice. He ultimately asked for input from four experienced
Denver-area district attorneys who made up his appointed Governor’s District Attorney Task Force.

  Romer said, “I listened carefully to what [my] district attorney advisers told me because all four were experienced and successful prosecutors.” Two of those district attorneys, Bob Grant and Bill Ritter, agreed there were three options. One was to appoint the attorney general in Colorado to act as a special prosecutor in the case. They quickly dismissed that option, however, because the attorney general’s office did not necessarily have the expertise or the time. The second option was to remove the Boulder district attorney from the case and appoint a special prosecutor from a metro-area district attorney’s office, assuming the special prosecutor would have some neutrality. The third option: bolster the Boulder district attorney’s staff with experienced outside prosecutors and leave the Boulder DA in place. Unfortunately, “bolstering” the staff evolved into “removing” the current staff from the case.

  “Governor Romer made the final decision,” said Grant, the Adams County district attorney at the time. “I advised him I thought the better of the options was to bring in new attorneys for the Boulder district attorney’s office and to not appoint a special prosecutor. I made my recommendation on the fact that I felt it was important to keep the case in Boulder. But it was the governor’s decision.”