Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A guy named Marty Grisham was murdered in Boulder, or
(00:04):
in Boulder County at least, I actually don't know just
where it was in twenty twelve, so what Eighteen years later,
a guy named Michael Clark was charged with the murder.
He was convicted of first degree murder. He's been in
prison since then, and last week a judge overturned that conviction.
Joining us to talk about the situation is Michael Doherty.
(00:27):
Michael is the District Attorney for Boulder County. He is
also a candidate for Attorney General for the state of Colorado,
but we will only be talking to him to him
today in his capacity as Boulder DA. Michael, Welcome back
to Kowa. It's good to have you here.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Good morning, Morross. It's great to be back on with you.
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Okay, so tell us why the judge vacated the verdict
and what your position is on what the judge has
done so far, and then we'll talk about what comes next.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Well, under the circumstance is presented here, which are pretty exceptional,
vacating the conviction was the right thing to do. And
I say that for a couple of reasons. First, you
laid out the timeline for your listeners. The murder of
Marty Grisham happened in nineteen ninety four. He was convicted
after trial. Michael Clark was in twenty twelve. But in
twenty twenty four, the Court of Appeals ruled on a
(01:20):
couple of issues. One was possible during misconduct because a
jurm may have and likely did visit the crime scene
during the course of the trial, which is prohibited for
jurors to do, especially during a trial. Also, there was
a question of ineffective assistants a council and whether the
defendant Michael Clark, had effective assistance council provided to him
(01:43):
in the lead up to and during trial. So that
was in twenty twenty four, the Court of Appeals sent
the case back to District Court in Boulder County saying
look at these two issues. After the case came back
to Boulder County, another significant development occurred, which was the
revelation that a DNA analyst at the car of your investigation,
the State Lab, had engaged in misconduct on a number
(02:05):
of cases involving DNA analysis and possible implications to the
Michael Clark case. So our office, because our mission is
always to do justice and do our best to reach
the right outcome in every case, we agreed that it
was appropriate to have a key piece of evidence retested
by a private lab. I will say that Kinra of
your investigation supported that and helped facilitate that for our office,
(02:29):
we sent the results out and based on those results,
but also the issue of German misconduct as well as
the possibility of ineffective assistance of council, we agreed with
the court that the conviction should be vacated and the
case should be returned for prosecution at this.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Point, Okay, so one just in the weeds thing here,
So it looks like what was tested was Carmack's lip bomb.
So is what happened that? Missy Woods said that the
car the DNA found in the Carmex lip bomb could
possibly include Michael Clark. He didn't say it was Clark,
(03:06):
but they said it could include Clark. And then your
retesting of the Carmex lipbomb said that it couldn't be Clark.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
That's close actually to what happened. But I will say
some of the results came back from the private lab
were the same and consistent with what Missy Woods had
testified to at the original trial. So there's different forms
of DNA testing and how in the weeds we want
to get, But there's a couple different forms of DNA testing.
She testified about something called YSTR testing and that those
(03:37):
results the partial profile developed was consistent with Michael Clark
to a certain degree. The private lab verified and confirmed
those results to be accurate. However, a trial, Missy Woods
also testified as to autosomal DNA testing that second type
of DNA testing, and the private lab returned different results
on the autosomal testing that could be for any number
(03:59):
of reasons, include advances in the DNA technology, but there's
other reasons that are possible as well. So, based on
all the circumstances, including the ineffective assistance, the council claim,
and possible germisconduct, the exceptional but right thing to do
in this case was to vacate the conviction and for
us to continue working on looking at all the evidence,
rounding up the witnesses, and determining the right path forward
(04:20):
from here.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
You may not want to go down this road, but
do you think Missy Woods, whether this case or more
broadly with all these cases that they're looking at, do
you think she was wrong or do you think she
was lying?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Well, I'm not. What I would say is she currently
stands and diited, and like every defendant, she's innocent unless
and until proven guilty in the charges of merely allegations.
I will say the extensive results that cawb your investigation
is produced about misconduct and results being different in many
many cases obviously as a ripple effect through the entire
(04:53):
justice system, and it hurts victims, it hurts defendants, but
also hurts the community's trust and confidence in what we
do in the justice system. So these damaging effects are
going to continue to have rippoles and continue to impact cases.
Michael Clark in just the most recent one.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, I think that wherever Missy Woods did stuff that
she shouldn't have done, and someone erroneously someone went to
prison for something they shouldn't have gone to prison for,
we should just add up all those prison sentences for
however long people were in prison that they shouldn't have been,
and just add them all up, and then that should
be Missy Wood's prison sentence. So we can start with
(05:29):
however many years Michael Clark has been in prison, and
just make that the beginning of missy Wood's sentence. I'm
not a prosecutor, I'm not a lawyer, so I don't
have to say alleged or this or that or any
of the other careful stuff that you have to say,
because I'm not you. So, Okay, we got about a
minute and a half left here, And for those just joining,
we're talking with Michael Dougherty, who is Boulder County DA.
(05:51):
What happens next and is there anything you are allowed
to say in public right now about you or expect dictation,
whether charges will just be dropped or whether you will refile,
whether you think there is actually evidence against this guy.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Sure. Well, I'm deeply committed to doing justice. That's the
kind of work. That's what I've been doing my entire
career losses, you know, So we're going to keep working
hard to make sure we reach the right outcome in
this case. I will highlight a couple of things and
answer to your question. First, there's no allegation whatsoever that
the prosecutors or the detectives who worked on this case
engaging in any misconduct whatsoever. They presented compelling evidence to
(06:29):
the jury. The jury found mister Clark guilty, and we
have to go back and examine all that evidence. And
also we're in the process of tracking down those witnesses.
That's a key part of this. And given what happened
to Marty Grisham, I mean, he was gunned down and
killed in his home, so the loss to his family
and to our community, we're going to be really careful
and thureau and how we go about this. We're going
(06:50):
to go back and assess everything and see if we
can prove the case beyond reasonable doubt at a second trial.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
How much of the original stuff was based on I
witnessed testimony, I thought, but that Grisham's girlfriend didn't see
the shooter, so't I'm wondering what kind of evidence other
than Missy Woods stuff got him convicted.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Good question, and that's part of what makes this case
incredibly difficult and exceptional from other cases Missy Woods may
have worked on. There was no eyewitness, no confession, no
video recording, and so on. It was all circumstantial. But
there was a lot of compelling, circumstantial evidence that trop presented,
including around the weapon itself and statements the defendant had
made back then to others. So there is a significant
(07:31):
amount of compelling, circumstantial evidence and working through that to
see if it's enough to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, and then it'll be interesting to see again. I
suppose it sort of depends what the judge rules in
terms of admissibility, But if I were a defense attorney,
I'd at least try to get that karmax in and say,
you know, they tried to railroad my client once with
these lies about DNA, and now we know they were lying,
(07:57):
and yeah, you know how it's going to go. How
are you going to counter that?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Well, I think it's a good question about how the
DNA evidence be litigated going forward. We're still working with
the private lab and the caow of your investigation to
assess the DNA evidence and what should be done with
it if the case goes to trial a second time
and the defense is doing the same. The defense is
retained DNA expert as well. So that's still in the
early stages. But most importantly, we're going to make sure
(08:22):
we work incredibly hard and do whatever we need to
do to figure out can the case be proven beyond
reasonable doubt? And if not, then we would have to
dismiss the case. I mean, it's going to depend on
our analysis here, but certainly vacating the conviction based on
those three claims that I discussed already was the right
thing to do.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Okay, very quick answer to this, just ballpark. About how
long do you think it will take your office to
decide whether to refile or to drop.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
So we've asked for a status state to be set
in June, and the court and the defense agreed with
that timeline. My hope is we'll have a significant update
by June. We've already been working on this for quite
some time, so I'm hopeful that by June will have
update for Marty Grisham's family and loved ones, as well
as for the community.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Michael Dolreaty is Boulder County District Attorney. He's also a
candidate for Attorney General for the state of Colorado. Thank
you for your time, Thanks for the good work you're doing, Michael,
Thank
Speaker 2 (09:12):
You, thanks for having me on Ross and I hope
you have a great day you too.
A guy named Marty Grisham was murdered in Boulder, or
(00:04):
in Boulder County at least, I actually don't know just
where it was in twenty twelve, so what Eighteen years later,
a guy named Michael Clark was charged with the murder.
He was convicted of first degree murder. He's been in
prison since then, and last week a judge overturned that conviction.
Joining us to talk about the situation is Michael Doherty.
(00:27):
Michael is the District Attorney for Boulder County. He is
also a candidate for Attorney General for the state of Colorado,
but we will only be talking to him to him
today in his capacity as Boulder DA. Michael, Welcome back
to Kowa. It's good to have you here.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Good morning, Morross. It's great to be back on with you.
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Okay, so tell us why the judge vacated the verdict
and what your position is on what the judge has
done so far, and then we'll talk about what comes next.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Well, under the circumstance is presented here, which are pretty exceptional,
vacating the conviction was the right thing to do. And
I say that for a couple of reasons. First, you
laid out the timeline for your listeners. The murder of
Marty Grisham happened in nineteen ninety four. He was convicted
after trial. Michael Clark was in twenty twelve. But in
twenty twenty four, the Court of Appeals ruled on a
(01:20):
couple of issues. One was possible during misconduct because a
jurm may have and likely did visit the crime scene
during the course of the trial, which is prohibited for
jurors to do, especially during a trial. Also, there was
a question of ineffective assistants a council and whether the
defendant Michael Clark, had effective assistance council provided to him
(01:43):
in the lead up to and during trial. So that
was in twenty twenty four, the Court of Appeals sent
the case back to District Court in Boulder County saying
look at these two issues. After the case came back
to Boulder County, another significant development occurred, which was the
revelation that a DNA analyst at the car of your investigation,
the State Lab, had engaged in misconduct on a number
(02:05):
of cases involving DNA analysis and possible implications to the
Michael Clark case. So our office, because our mission is
always to do justice and do our best to reach
the right outcome in every case, we agreed that it
was appropriate to have a key piece of evidence retested
by a private lab. I will say that Kinra of
your investigation supported that and helped facilitate that for our office,
(02:29):
we sent the results out and based on those results,
but also the issue of German misconduct as well as
the possibility of ineffective assistance of council, we agreed with
the court that the conviction should be vacated and the
case should be returned for prosecution at this.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Point, Okay, so one just in the weeds thing here,
So it looks like what was tested was Carmack's lip bomb.
So is what happened that? Missy Woods said that the
car the DNA found in the Carmex lip bomb could
possibly include Michael Clark. He didn't say it was Clark,
(03:06):
but they said it could include Clark. And then your
retesting of the Carmex lipbomb said that it couldn't be Clark.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
That's close actually to what happened. But I will say
some of the results came back from the private lab
were the same and consistent with what Missy Woods had
testified to at the original trial. So there's different forms
of DNA testing and how in the weeds we want
to get, But there's a couple different forms of DNA testing.
She testified about something called YSTR testing and that those
(03:37):
results the partial profile developed was consistent with Michael Clark
to a certain degree. The private lab verified and confirmed
those results to be accurate. However, a trial, Missy Woods
also testified as to autosomal DNA testing that second type
of DNA testing, and the private lab returned different results
on the autosomal testing that could be for any number
(03:59):
of reasons, include advances in the DNA technology, but there's
other reasons that are possible as well. So, based on
all the circumstances, including the ineffective assistance, the council claim,
and possible germisconduct, the exceptional but right thing to do
in this case was to vacate the conviction and for
us to continue working on looking at all the evidence,
rounding up the witnesses, and determining the right path forward
(04:20):
from here.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
You may not want to go down this road, but
do you think Missy Woods, whether this case or more
broadly with all these cases that they're looking at, do
you think she was wrong or do you think she
was lying?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Well, I'm not. What I would say is she currently
stands and diited, and like every defendant, she's innocent unless
and until proven guilty in the charges of merely allegations.
I will say the extensive results that cawb your investigation
is produced about misconduct and results being different in many
many cases obviously as a ripple effect through the entire
(04:53):
justice system, and it hurts victims, it hurts defendants, but
also hurts the community's trust and confidence in what we
do in the justice system. So these damaging effects are
going to continue to have rippoles and continue to impact cases.
Michael Clark in just the most recent one.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, I think that wherever Missy Woods did stuff that
she shouldn't have done, and someone erroneously someone went to
prison for something they shouldn't have gone to prison for,
we should just add up all those prison sentences for
however long people were in prison that they shouldn't have been,
and just add them all up, and then that should
be Missy Wood's prison sentence. So we can start with
(05:29):
however many years Michael Clark has been in prison, and
just make that the beginning of missy Wood's sentence. I'm
not a prosecutor, I'm not a lawyer, so I don't
have to say alleged or this or that or any
of the other careful stuff that you have to say,
because I'm not you. So, Okay, we got about a
minute and a half left here, And for those just joining,
we're talking with Michael Dougherty, who is Boulder County DA.
(05:51):
What happens next and is there anything you are allowed
to say in public right now about you or expect dictation,
whether charges will just be dropped or whether you will refile,
whether you think there is actually evidence against this guy.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Sure. Well, I'm deeply committed to doing justice. That's the
kind of work. That's what I've been doing my entire
career losses, you know, So we're going to keep working
hard to make sure we reach the right outcome in
this case. I will highlight a couple of things and
answer to your question. First, there's no allegation whatsoever that
the prosecutors or the detectives who worked on this case
engaging in any misconduct whatsoever. They presented compelling evidence to
(06:29):
the jury. The jury found mister Clark guilty, and we
have to go back and examine all that evidence. And
also we're in the process of tracking down those witnesses.
That's a key part of this. And given what happened
to Marty Grisham, I mean, he was gunned down and
killed in his home, so the loss to his family
and to our community, we're going to be really careful
and thureau and how we go about this. We're going
(06:50):
to go back and assess everything and see if we
can prove the case beyond reasonable doubt at a second trial.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
How much of the original stuff was based on I
witnessed testimony, I thought, but that Grisham's girlfriend didn't see
the shooter, so't I'm wondering what kind of evidence other
than Missy Woods stuff got him convicted.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Good question, and that's part of what makes this case
incredibly difficult and exceptional from other cases Missy Woods may
have worked on. There was no eyewitness, no confession, no
video recording, and so on. It was all circumstantial. But
there was a lot of compelling, circumstantial evidence that trop presented,
including around the weapon itself and statements the defendant had
made back then to others. So there is a significant
(07:31):
amount of compelling, circumstantial evidence and working through that to
see if it's enough to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, and then it'll be interesting to see again. I
suppose it sort of depends what the judge rules in
terms of admissibility, But if I were a defense attorney,
I'd at least try to get that karmax in and say,
you know, they tried to railroad my client once with
these lies about DNA, and now we know they were lying,
(07:57):
and yeah, you know how it's going to go. How
are you going to counter that?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Well, I think it's a good question about how the
DNA evidence be litigated going forward. We're still working with
the private lab and the caow of your investigation to
assess the DNA evidence and what should be done with
it if the case goes to trial a second time
and the defense is doing the same. The defense is
retained DNA expert as well. So that's still in the
early stages. But most importantly, we're going to make sure
(08:22):
we work incredibly hard and do whatever we need to
do to figure out can the case be proven beyond
reasonable doubt? And if not, then we would have to
dismiss the case. I mean, it's going to depend on
our analysis here, but certainly vacating the conviction based on
those three claims that I discussed already was the right
thing to do.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Okay, very quick answer to this, just ballpark. About how
long do you think it will take your office to
decide whether to refile or to drop.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
So we've asked for a status state to be set
in June, and the court and the defense agreed with
that timeline. My hope is we'll have a significant update
by June. We've already been working on this for quite
some time, so I'm hopeful that by June will have
update for Marty Grisham's family and loved ones, as well
as for the community.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Michael Dolreaty is Boulder County District Attorney. He's also a
candidate for Attorney General for the state of Colorado. Thank
you for your time, Thanks for the good work you're doing, Michael,
Thank
Speaker 2 (09:12):
You, thanks for having me on Ross and I hope
you have a great day you too.
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