Lawyers for the former Rocky Ford police officer convicted in June of second-degree murder for killing a man while on duty in 2014 have filed a motion seeking his acquittal or a new trial in the case.
James Ashby’s defense team claims there was insufficient evidence to convict their client, errors by the court during the proceedings and several instances of juror misconduct throughout Ashby’s trial.
“Mr. Ashby moves this court to set aside the verdict and grant him a new trial, in the interests of justice,” the motion says.
Ashby was found guilty in the fatal shooting of 27-year-old Jack Jacquez in Jacquez’s mother’s kitchen.
When he was arrested a month after Jacquez’s Oct. 12, 2014, slaying, Ashby became the first Colorado policeman in at least two decades to face a murder charge in an on-duty death. A Denver officer was acquitted in a 1992 shooting. It’s not clear when the last Colorado police officer was convicted of murder in an on-duty death before Ashby, or if it had ever happened.
Ashby faces up to 48 years in prison at a scheduled Sept. 23 sentencing that court records show is now also billed as a motions hearing.
The new 28-page filing submitted to the court Monday along with witness affidavits, however, calls for the case to be thrown out or retried on the basis that Ashby’s rights were broken through constitutional error and tainted on multiple levels.
Ashby’s lawyers say one juror was seen speaking with the father of Jack Jacquez in the courthouse during trial proceedings and that the juror wrote something down on a notepad while the father watched. In another instance, the motion says a juror was reportedly admitted to sketching scenes for later use in a book she planned to write about the trial and possibly taking them from the courtroom.
Also, the motion says another juror was seen sleeping during proceedings and that the same juror — who said he was hard of hearing — removed his hearing aids several times during the trial and failed to use a courtroom assisted listening device.
Ashby’s lawyers also took issue with jury instructions in the case over the lawfulness of Ashby’s initial contact with Jacquez the night of the shooting and that one juror in the case provided an extraneous legal definition to other jurors during deliberations.
Finally, the motion claims the Otero County district court erred when it allowed testimony about the Rocky Ford Police Department’s use of force policy and that the evidence submitted by prosecutors was not sufficient to sustain a conviction.
“The weight of the evidence in this case is clearly against the verdict, as the government failed to prove each element of the charge beyond a reasonable doubt,” the motion says.
Investigators say Ashby followed Jacquez into the home of Jacquez’s mother in the early-morning hours and shot him in the back. Ashby told investigators he thought Jacquez was a burglar, court papers show, but officials say he had no reason to believe Jacquez was committing a crime.
James Bullock, the district attorney who prosecuted the case, said after Ashby was convicted that justice had been done. He declined to comment Thursday on the motion, telling The Denver Post that he wouldn’t be speaking about the proceedings until they are complete.
Ashby’s lawyers, however, said in the new filing that the verdict must be remedied “before it can be said that justice was served.”
