Click here<\/a> for a timeline and further background on the case.<\/p>\nThe Colorado Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in Stauch\u2019s appeal on Jan. 27. <\/p>\n
Eric Samler is an attorney representing Stauch in her appeal. Samler says a juror in Stauch\u2019s trial had a son-in-law who worked for the 4th Judicial District Attorney\u2019s Office, the same office the prosecuted the case. Samler argues that juror sat on the panel despite Stauch\u2019s trial defense team challenging the juror, saying this should lead to a \u201creversal\u201d of her conviction.<\/p>\n
Senior Assistant Attorney General Katharine Gillespie argued the trial judge never made a ruling regarding the juror in question, and says Stauch\u2019s trial defense team did not challenge that juror correctly under state law. <\/p>\n
District Attorney for Colorado\u2019s 23rd Judicial District George Brauchler has no ties to the Stauch case and offered insight as a legal expert.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone convicted of a felony that gets sent to prison typically appeals, so that\u2019s not a surprise at all. The Court of Appeals does not have to take oral argument on every single one of these appeals. They chose to do it here,\u201d Brauchler said. \u201cI think that the current case law that exists weighs in favor of the fact that the defense does not have to exercise a peremptory challenge to strike a statutory cause removal of a juror … I think it puts in peril the conviction in this case, which would be a huge tragedy for all involved.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Brauchler says Stauch\u2019s appeal case may have merit, he also says the Court of Appeals is likely considering vast implications it\u2019s opinion could have on future cases in Colorado.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a slam dunk either way,\u201d Brauchler said. \u201cIf the Court of Appeals comes back and overturns this case, which [would be] a big, big deal, I think you\u2019re going to see judges across the state probably go the defense way on a lot more cause objections of jurors than they have in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Court of Appeals Chief Communications Officer says there is no timeline within which a panel of three judges must issue an opinion by, adding it can take four to five months in \u201cmore complex cases.\u201d<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 KKTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – Letecia Stauch is appealing her 2023 conviction, when an El Paso County jury…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[254,2055,138,140,139,2060,2058,2057,2059,2061,2056],"class_list":{"0":"post-159365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-el-paso","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breaking-news-video","10":"tag-el-paso","11":"tag-el-paso-headlines","12":"tag-el-paso-news","13":"tag-live-speeches","14":"tag-live-updates","15":"tag-live-video","16":"tag-press-conference","17":"tag-real-time-coverage","18":"tag-video-updates"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}