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CO SUPREME COURT: DAs need not personally submit wiretap aps
Posted: Mar 10, 2012 10:52 AM by Matt Stafford
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (AP) - Colorado's elected district attorneys need not personally prepare and submit applications for wiretap surveillance, a technicality that a drug suspected sought to use to have his conviction and 96 year sentenced thrown out.
The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction reports the Colorado Supreme Court made that determination in a ruling issued earlier this week in a Mesa County drug case. The Colorado Court of Appeals had tossed out 45-year-old Tommy O'Hara's conviction for his role in a drug ring because a wiretap application had not been signed by Mesa County District Attorney Pete Hautzinger.
Hautzinger was involved in obtaining the wiretaps but the applications were prepared by others. Chief Judge David Bottger approved the wiretaps in January 2006.
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