LETTERS: The attorney general is not elected to be a ‘super district attorney’

Editor: As ballots are being mailed in Colorado, voters’ mailboxes are also being filled with mailers from campaigns as well as Independent Expenditure Committees (IEC). Recent ones from the Colorado Freedom IEC (an IEC funded solely by the Washington DC-based Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA)) caught my eye because of the misleading information they contained about the Attorney General’s role in prosecuting crime, and in particular motor vehicle theft. And recently, Republican AG candidate John Kellner himself has called for the extraordinary measure of a special session of the legislature to increase the penalties for motor vehicle theft.

These messages have the potential to mislead voters because – as RAGA and the Republican AG nominee should know – the AG does not have responsibility for prosecuting motor vehicle theft. Instead, that lies with the District Attorney in each of Colorado’s 22 Judicial Districts, including Mr. Kellner for the 18th JD (Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert, and Lincoln Counties).

I decided to take a look at what Mr. Kellner, as District Attorney, has actually done about motor vehicle theft in my (and his) home county, Arapahoe County. The District Attorney’s Office for the 18th Judicial District maintains a dashboard of sentences imposed in cases. I looked at cases that had a felony case number within the court system (i.e., had been assigned a “CR” number), that had been filed in Arapahoe County in 2021 or 2022 (i.e., while Mr. Kellner was DA), and where the defendant had been sentenced. I found 160 such cases. Of those, the majority of the defendants had received a sentence to probation. In only 75 cases, had the defendant received a sentence to prison, Community Corrections (halfway house), or a Jail sentence of more than 90 days in jail. (More than 90 days is significant because a Judge can sentence a defendant to up to 90 days of jail as a condition of probation on a felony charge).

While people can agree to disagree on how to best address rising motor vehicle theft rates, voters deserve factually correct information. The AG is not a “super DA” with the primary responsibility of prosecuting crime; the AG has no responsibility for prosecuting motor vehicle theft; and, as DA, Mr. Kellner has not been seeking the maximum penalties for motor vehicle theft cases, which calls into question his motivation for asking to increase them.

—Amy Padden, via letters@sentinelcolorado.com