Attorney General told to step aside in Healea case
A state appellate court has ordered the attorney general’s office to remove itself from a criminal case involving a county prosecutor.
The Missouri Eastern District Court of Appeals’ ruling on Tuesday said the office would need to appoint a new prosecutor to handle the case against Shayne Healea. Healea, the Moniteau County prosecutor, faces four counts of assault and one count of leaving the scene of an accident after he allegedly backed his truck into Addison’s restaurant in downtown Columbia nearly three years ago.
The three-judge panel said the office needed to step aside to protect the fairness of the trial. Healea appealed a circuit judge’s ruling to release a report that detailed a conversation between he and his attorney. Columbia police had a video of that conversation the night of Healea’s arrest, which he claimed was a violation of his Sixth Amendment right to attorney-client privilege.
Assistant Attorney General Julie Tolle handled the case after Boone County prosecutor Dan Knight recused himself. Tolle, who no longer works for the office, said she did not know about the CPD’s recording, despite the department handing it over when she took the case. Healea’s attorney raised the issue last year, and asked the circuit court to throw out the charges because of it.
“The lengthy delay in surrendering the recording to [Healea] reflects poorly on the criminal justice system – especially when an individual’s Sixth Amendment and due process rights are at issue,” the ruling reads. “Moreover, the Attorney General’s Office never logged the recording as evidence, and to this date, it has not offered an explanation for the unique treatment of the recording compared to its other evidence. After reviewing all of the facts and circumstances, we believe a reasonable person would have doubts about the fairness of the trial if handled by the Attorney General’s Office.”
Darrell Moore took over the case after Josh Hawley took over the office in November.
Loree Anne Paradise, spokeswoman for the attorney general, distanced the office from Tolle’s conduct.
“The Attorney General’s Office was asked to serve as a special prosecutor in this case during the [Chris] Koster administration,” Paradise said in an email on Tuesday. “The alleged conduct discussed in the judicial opinion occurred during the prior administration. The litigation is ongoing and we will continue to pursue it until completion.”
The ruling also calls for a hearing on whether or not the CPD needs to purge its servers of the video. So far, Judge Rick Tucker has not set a date for that hearing.
The opinion also reaffirms Special Master Hadley Grimm’s report on the topic. It claims the department violated not only the Sixth Amendment by recording the phone conversation, but broke the department’s own policy and state law.
“We see no justification for the CPD retaining access to the surreptitiously recorded conversation between [Healea] and his attorney,” the court wrote. “That being said, the CPD is not a ‘party’ to this litigation and has not had a chance to provide the justification for keeping the recording on its servers.”
Department spokeswoman Bryana Larimer said she would speak with command staff before providing a comment on the court’s decision.
