An Educational Experience

An agreed sanction ordered by the Colorado Presiding Disciplinary Judge

The Presiding Disciplinary Judge approved the parties’ conditional admission of misconduct and publicly censured Jack B. Roth (attorney registration number 32040), effective October 21, 2019.

Roth, a former Assistant Attorney General at the Colorado Attorney General’s office, was counsel of record in the prosecutions of two death-penalty eligible homicides. In 2016, Roth gave two lectures to undergraduate classes at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. In those lectures, he discussed non-public facts regarding the two prosecutions (one of which had not been filed as of the first lecture). Roth negligently believed the facts of the cases had become public or would soon become public.

Roth also disclosed his personal opinions about the defendants’ guilt and the appropriate punishment in each case. Finally, Roth’s statements had a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing the adjudicative proceedings in the underlying matters.

Through this conduct, Roth violated Colo. RPC 3.6(a) (a lawyer who participates in the investigation or litigation of a matter shall not make an extrajudicial statement that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know will be disseminated by means of public communication and will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding).

(Mike Frisch)