On July 13, 2026, a Colorado judge issued a rare penalty: She disqualified an entire district attorney’s office from a double murder case — and reduced the murder charges — because the office’s repeated misconduct had become too serious and too frequent to ignore.

By the court’s own count, District Attorney Jeff Lindsey’s office had committed at least 23 discovery violations since he took office in November 2024, replacing elected DA Linda Stanley when she was disbarred for misconduct. Judge Lauren Swan didn’t mince words: “I am not finding that this can any longer be blamed on the prior administration.”

Here’s what happened, why it matters, and how the 11th Judicial District’s pattern of repeated violations proves that existing mechanisms are ineffective in deterring prosecutorial misconduct.

Toni Gurule was charged with double murder after a grand jury indicted her alongside co-defendants Anthony Fogle and Suzette Salyer for the 2022 killings of Ryan Roth and Rodolfo Santillan-Reyes in Fremont County.

In 2021, before the murders, Jeff Lindsey — then a deputy DA — arranged an extraordinary plea deal letting Fogle out of custody to work as a confidential informant. After the murders, Fogle received a second plea deal from Lindsey’s office in exchange for testifying against Gurule. He is the only eyewitness in her case.

Lindsey and his office never disclosed either deal to Gurule’s defense. That made him a material witness to his own eyewitness’s credibility, which, combined with representations to the court that were “not wholly truthful,” left Judge Swan without faith Gurule would receive a fair trial. She disqualified Lindsey, his deputies, and the entire office and ordered a special prosecutor.

The court found that, in addition to those found in Gurule and Salyer’s cases, Lindsey’s office had committed at least 23 discovery violations since he took office. Among them were a video interview of Fogle that the court had ordered to be disclosed back January but wasn’t until late June (with a trial date set for late July); police reports documenting Fogle’s dishonesty; jail calls in which Fogle threatened witnesses; and records of his cooperation with the FBI.

The judge called it “willful ignorance on the prosecution’s part . . . or a pattern of neglect.” As a sanction for that pattern, she reduced the first-degree murder charges against Gurule to class two felonies.

The court was explicit that these discovery violations alone weren’t grounds to disqualify a DA’s office. But the failure to disclose the conflict of interest around Fogle is a symptom of the same rampant problem with the office’s practices.

This is not the first time a court has flagged the 11th Judicial District for misconduct, nor the first time Lindsey has faced scrutiny.

• 2021–2022: As lead DA on the Morphew murder case under elected DA Linda Stanley, the office was found to have a “continuing pattern” of discovery failures. The court called it negligent and “arguably reckless” but stopped short of finding it willful.
• December 2023: The Colorado Supreme Court went further, finding “multiple, ongoing, persistent, and significant” violations across 20 cases tied to the office under Stanley and wrote plainly that “previously imposed sanctions have not proven effective.”
• January 2024: Attorney regulators declined to discipline Lindsey on the Morphew case but cautioned him, in writing, to “learn and fully understand” a prosecutor’s disclosure obligations.
• November 2024: Lindsey was sworn in as the elected DA, replacing Linda Stanley after her disbarment. He promised the discovery failures would stop.
• December 2025: Discovery failures continued. In a triple homicide, a judge sanctioned Lindsey, found he’d violated his ethical disclosure duties, and rejected his claim that outdated software was to blame for these issues — finding willful withholding instead. The judge identified a pattern of 15 cases in which the office committed Rule 16 discovery violations in the prior year. The judge sanctioned the DA’s office by excluding a critical witness from testifying at the trial.
• July 2026: First-degree murder charges were downgraded and the office was disqualified from the Gurule case, citing 23 violations in under two years.

Every bullet point in the timeline asks the same question: Will this finally be enough to compel the 11th Judicial District Attorney’s office to follow the rules?

It’s clear now the answer is “no.” Prosecutors are shielded by absolute immunity, a doctrine the U.S. Supreme Court invented in 1976 that protects prosecutors from being sued for misconduct they commit while prosecuting a case — even when a court later finds that the misconduct was intentional. Police officers can be sued, doctors can be sued, and other types of attorneys can be sued, but prosecutors cannot. Ending absolute immunity would provide a real counterbalance to deter the pattern of misconduct we’ve continued to witness in the 11th Judicial District.

For now, nothing is stopping prosecutors from cutting corners, hiding or withholding evidence, or prioritizing winning convictions over seeking justice. If prosecutors were to face civil liability for misconduct, the incentive might change — and improve our legal system.

Lindsey has already told us what happens next: likely nothing.

On July 23 — 10 days after Judge Swan’s ruling — Lindsey’s office announced he won’t appeal the disqualification. Instead, it published a list of reforms: mandatory staff training on discovery obligations, a new records custodian position, outside ethics counsel, a referral for independent review through the Prosecutors’ Center for Excellence, and a promised public progress update within 30 days. One of the reforms places Lindsey in the division where the violations occurred to allow him to provide “direct oversight” — despite a judge having recently found Lindsey had a personal conflict of interest in this case. “As elected District Attorney,” Lindsey said, “I take full responsibility for ensuring this office meets the highest professional standards.”

Colorado has heard this before. When Lindsey was sworn in back in November 2024, he made the same promise: The discovery failures would stop. But it’s clear now that they did not.

Victims and the accused will suffer the most for these repeated failures. Victims are denied the truth their cases deserve, and the accused are denied a fair shot at justice, all while public trust in the legal system erodes and the prosecutors responsible face no real consequences.

We’ll know soon enough whether or not the announcements of reform are sincere this time. But Lindsey’s office has made clear that it should not be trusted to police itself. Until absolute immunity is eliminated and prosecutors are held accountable, this cycle — of misconduct, sanctions, and promises — will continue.