The Colorado Court of Appeals on Thursday overturned the conviction of a Colorado Springs woman who was found guilty of murder in the death of her 11-year-old stepson, Gannon Stauch, in January 2020.
The three-judge panel reversed Letecia Stauch’s 2023 conviction and ordered a retrial over a biased juror her attorneys were unable to dismiss and deliberated on the case, Judge Neeti Pawar wrote in a 54-page ruling.
The juror said his son-in-law worked as a deputy district attorney in the 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office in El Paso County, which prosecuted the case, according to the ruling.
The juror should have been dismissed automatically because of their relationship to the district attorney’s office, Pawar wrote, to preserve “the appearance if not the reality of fairness in a criminal prosecution and … public trust and confidence in the criminal justice system.”
“Our supreme court has consistently recognized the type of error implicated here — a violation of the defendant’s right to an unbiased jury — as so harmful that it warrants automatic reversal,” Pawar wrote.
Kate Singh, a spokesperson for the 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, called the court’s opinion disappointing for the prosecutors and Gannon’s family and friends.
“Still we remain undeterred in our search for ultimate justice in this case,” Singh said in an email. “We will consult with the Attorney General’s office about seeking review of today’s decision in the Colorado Supreme Court, and if necessary, we will be prepared to present the case to a new jury here in El Paso County.”
Letecia Stauch, 42, was arrested in March 2020, after her stepson’s body was found in a suitcase below a bridge in the Florida Panhandle. Prosecutors alleged she stabbed and then shot her stepson in his bedroom before reporting him missing in late January 2020.
More than 200 volunteers conducted searches for the boy in the area near where the family lived near Colorado Springs, while authorities investigated. About two weeks after Gannon disappeared, searchers found a piece of particle board with Gannon’s blood on it in a rural area nearby.
Letecia Stauch was charged with first-degree murder, tampering with a deceased human body and tampering with physical evidence. She pleaded not guiltyby reason of insanity, arguing that she suffered from dissociative identity disorder, but the jury rejected that defense and found her guilty as charged.
She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
One Colorado Court of Appeals judge agreed that the lower court made a mistake by not dismissing the juror, but claimed Stauch waived her right to a new trial when her attorneys did not use their peremptory challenges to remove the biased juror.
“The defendant is in a position to correct the trial judge’s cause error early and easily, simply by using an available peremptory challenge to strike the problem juror,” Judge Steven Bernard wrote.
“And this remedy is ‘far superior,’ by any legitimate institutional measure, to letting the biased juror sit through an entire trial and then reversing the conviction and ordering a new trial.”
Letecia Stauch remains in custody at the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility.