Man serving life to be freed after prosecutor misconduct found

LAKEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — A special prosecutor said Friday that the conviction of a man serving life in prison in the slaying of a woman should be tossed out because new DNA evidence points to another suspect.

Special prosecutor Don Quick said he will ask a judge on Tuesday to vacate Timothy Masters' conviction. A judge will decide whether Masters, now 36, is released or granted a new trial.

"This new evidence requires a vacation of the original conviction," said Quick, who had found earlier this year that the original prosecutors in the case improperly withheld documents from Masters' defense team.

Defense attorney David Wymore said he hoped to have Masters out of prison by Tuesday. Wymore said Masters was aware of Quick's recommendation.

Masters' defense team had DNA evidence independently analyzed and found that it matched a different suspect. Quick announced his recommendation after state testing confirmed the defense findings.

Masters was 15 when the body of Peggy Hettrick, a manager at a women's clothing store, was found near his house in February 1987.

Prosecutors based their case on a psychological analysis, violent pictures he had drawn, that he lived 100 feet from where Hettrick's body was found, and that police said he had seen the body but didn't report it.

Part of Masters' defense is that investigators may have overlooked a potential suspect, an eye doctor who lived nearby and who had a sexual fetish. Dr. Richard Hammond committed suicide in 1995 after police accused him of secretly videotaping the genitalia of female visitors who used the bathroom at his home.

During a brief news conference Friday, Quick said DNA excluded Hammond as a suspect. Quick did not take questions


USA Today

Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409 (1976)

The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissing a complaint against a state prosecutor alleged to have knowingly used false testimony and suppressed evidence favorable to the defendant. The Supreme Court held that a state prosecutor acting within the scope of his prosecutorial duties was absolutely immune to civil suit for damages even if the allegations were true.