Laramie County DA Disbarred

The Wyoming Supreme Court has disbarred the Laramie County District Attorney

Ms. Manlove obtained her license to practice law in Wyoming in 2000. She was elected to serve as the District Attorney for Laramie County, Wyoming, and assumed office on January 7, 2019. Beginning in the fall of 2019, staff employed at the Laramie County District Attorney’s Office (D.A.’s Office) began reporting concerns about Ms. Manlove’s conduct to Bar Counsel and to the Human Resources Division with the Department of Administration & Information (Human Resources Division).

More than a year later, on December 21, 2020, the circuit court and district court judges in Laramie County jointly wrote a letter reporting Ms. Manlove’s conduct to the Bar. The judges stated they collectively witnessed Ms. Manlove refuse to fulfill her ethical obligations, and they believed the Wyoming Judicial Code of Conduct required them to report her conduct to the Bar for an investigation. The judges’ reported concerns about Ms. Manlove’s conduct were two-fold: (1) her personnel management; and (2) abdicating her professional responsibilities. After receiving the judges’ letter, Bar Counsel filed arequest for this Court to immediately suspend Ms. Manlove’s license pursuant to W.R.D.P. 17(a). We denied the request.

Special Bar Counsel then filed charges in a  number of matters.

One involved State v. R.L. 

The Hearing Panel found Ms. Manlove’s failure to timely disclose evidence violated her duties of competence and diligence under Rules 1.1 and 1.3. Rule 1.1 requires a lawyer to provide competent representation.

And

Ms. Manlove’s failure to disclose R.L.’s prior criminal record and the DNA test results shows a lack of thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary for the prosecution of R.L.

Candor to tribunal

the Hearing Panel found Ms. Manlove violated her duty of candor by misrepresenting to the district court her reason for failing to timely disclose the DNA evidence.

A separate matter

In a separate case involving similar conduct by Ms. Manlove, Cheyenne Police Department’s Case No. 20-47759, the Bar, through Special Bar Counsel, charged Ms. Manlove with five separate Rule violations.

The criminal case

On August 30, 2020, officers with the Cheyenne Police Department responded to a report involving the sexual abuse of a fourteen-year-old girl. The girl reported her mother’s boyfriend repeatedly sexually abused her between January 2020 and August 2020, including by assaulting her with a vibrator that he kept in his bedroom. Two months later, a detective with the Cheyenne Police Department submitted a probable cause affidavit to the D.A.’s Office. The affidavit set forth several alleged incidences of sexual abuse, detailed witness statements, and discussed a forensic medical examination of the girl.

Lapses

Ms. Manlove, as the district attorney, had a duty to timely inquire into Case No. 20-47759 with care and accuracy, and examine the available evidence, the law, and the facts, and apply each to the other. Matter of Segal, 617 A.2d at 244; ABA Standards for Criminal Justice § 3-1.9. In Case No. 20-47759, she failed to act for more than seven months. When her office uploaded a form request for evidence, she received a response from the Cheyenne Police Department the following month. The girl’s mother regularly contacted the D.A.’s Office but was repeatedly told Ms. Manlove had not yet reviewed the case. Ms. Manlove admitted she did not know the police report was available until she began looking at the case in June 2021—seven months after her office received the first affidavit of probable cause. She also did not access or review the DNA test results from BEAST until July 2021, which was after the Cheyenne Police Department responded to her declination of the case. Further, Ms. Manlove admitted she made no attempt to communicate about the case with the detective prior to declining to pursue charges.

False statement

We find Ms. Manlove’s statements she was wholly reliant on law enforcement to notify her DNA test results were available and they failed to do so were materially false. We agree with the Hearing Panel there was clear and convincing evidence Ms. Manlove violated Rule 8.1(a) in an effort to avoid taking responsibility for her failure to timely review serious criminal allegations.

Other misconduct findings

The Hearing Panel found Ms. Manlove’s issuance of a materially misleading press release in Criminal Action No. CR 2019-1739 violated Rule 8.4(d). The Hearing Panel found Ms. Manlove’s conduct negatively impacted the public’s perception or efficacy of the courts or legal profession. We agree.

Case and office management

The Hearing Panel found Ms. Manlove’s personnel management and case management violated Rule 8.4(d). It found the following conduct as alleged in the first formal charge violated Rule 8.4(d):
• Purging the District Attorney’s Office of competent attorneys and staff on her first day in office without having an adequate transition plan in place to ensure the smooth and competent administration of justice;
• By directing staff not to report overtime and by fostering a workplace environment of fear and intimidation where nonexempt employees were afraid to report overtime or to request overtime for fear of retaliation from [Ms. Manlove];
• Failing to take prompt action to fill vacancies in her office;
• Exaggerating the impact of budget restraints and prematurely making drastic unjustified reductions in the level of services provided by her office;
• Directing the wholesale dismissal of filed cases without considering the merits of individual cases and guidelines for dismissals of criminal cases;
• Directing dismissals of cases because she was not prepared to go to trial; and
• Filing improper motions to dismiss after she had been warned by judges to discontinue such filings.

The court

Dismissing approximately 400 cases due to a backlog caused by her own decisionmaking and falsely citing budgetary reasons to conceal her gross mishandling of her office’s caseload reflects negatively on the legal profession, impairs public confidence in the justice system, fails to ensure justice is done, and engenders a disrespect for the judicial system. We agree there is clear and convincing evidence Ms. Manlove’s conduct violated Rule 8.4(d).

Sanction

Considering the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the number of Rule violations, the severity of the Rule violations, Ms. Manlove’s pattern of conduct and pervasive dishonesty, the effects of Ms. Manlove’s conduct on the legal profession and the criminal justice system, and her state of mind, we conclude disbarment is the proper sanction. Ms. Manlove’s conduct and lack of candor places her continued fitness to practice law into serious question and does not allow for any sanction short of disbarment. We, therefore, disbar Ms. Manlove from the practice of law in Wyoming, which shall take effect at the close of business May 5, 2023.

(Mike Frisch)