Word: boulder
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...salvage any remaining chance of developing a prosecutable case. At times, both sides have seemed to devote more energy to sniping at each other than to looking for JonBenet's killer. D.A. Hunter went so far as to refuse to attend a September session in Quantico, Va., at which Boulder police sought the guidance of FBI experts in evaluating evidence. His explanation was that the cops were going to show the FBI only some of the evidence and there was little point to his attending a partial review. Earlier, the police had enlisted three lawyers to give them independent guidance...
...investigation--and says it still--many police and other critics think he has no zeal to prosecute them. Indeed, they say, historically he has not been enthusiastic about prosecuting anybody; police bitterly accuse him of negotiating far too many plea bargains. Dale Stange, just retired as a Boulder patrolman, says the D.A. has long been known to the police as "Alex Let's-Make-a-Deal Hunter." Carla Selby, a community activist, voices another suspicion: "There's a feeling that Alex is vulnerable to big money, that he is protecting the Ramseys"--who are very big money. John Ramsey...
...strongest suspicion, though, is that Hunter is partial not so much to the Ramseys as to their lawyers. Boulder, for all its academic eminence as the site of a University of Colorado campus and its reputation as a refuge for dropouts, is very much a small town where "all the lawyers are friends," says a retired judge. The Ramseys' legal team is headed by Hal Haddon--and if Hunter is a midsize fish in Colorado Democratic politics, Haddon is a whale. He was a close adviser to former Senator Gary Hart and a strong ally of Governor Roy Romer...
Hunter shrugs off all the charges. Too many plea bargains? Just "locker-room talk" from cops. Closeness to Ramsey lawyers? "A bogus issue," he says. (Boulder lawyer Tom Lamm agrees that "Alex doesn't cross over that line to do anything that would suggest collusion.") The D.A. insists he is not being slow, just deliberate. Says Hunter: "This case is not in a posture for presentation" to a judge or jury. The obvious, though unspoken message: for all their leaking of dark suspicions about the Ramseys, the police have not shown Hunter enough hard evidence to support an arrest...
Police chief Tom Koby is said by some of his own officers to have more interest in community-outreach programs than in solving crime. Most of the time that approach might fit the needs of Boulder, where police spend as much time seeking bicycle thieves as hunting for more hardened criminals. JonBenet's murder was the only one in 1996. But, say critics, Koby should have realized early that his troops were in need of outside help. Instead, he seemed to resent the idea that anyone outside Boulder should even take an interest in the case. In a January appearance...