A Boulder County murder conviction has been wiped out after Colorado's second-highest court found that a juror who openly admitted she could not be fair was still allowed to help decide the case. The Colorado Court of Appeals reversed Andrew James Ritchie's conviction in the killing of Longmont postal carrier Jason Schaefer, ordering a new trial after concluding that the juror's own words showed bias against him.
The three-judge panel's decision, issued Thursday in People v. Ritchie, centers on a juror identified only as Juror P, according to Colorado Politics. During Ritchie's 2023 trial, Juror P disclosed that she had serious post-traumatic stress disorder tied to an old trauma: more than 20 years earlier, she said, somebody threatened to kill her and her family. She told the court the violence at the center of Ritchie's case was retraumatizing, saying it was leaving her distracted from the proceedings. When defense counsel asked directly whether she believed she could not be a fair juror, she answered, simply, “yes.”
A Judge's Call to Keep Her On the Panel
Despite that exchange, Boulder County District Judge Patrick Butler declined to remove Juror P from the case. Butler said she had indicated she could remain fair despite her emotional experience, pointing to her statement that she would decide the case based on the evidence rather than whether she liked an attorney. The defense had moved to dismiss her over both her trauma and her own doubts about her fairness, but Butler denied that motion. A defense attorney later told Butler the following day that Juror P had reiterated she could not be fair.
Juror P's comments were not limited to her trauma. She also told the court she had seen the prosecutor speak at a political event and said her positive view of that prosecutor was strongly affecting her. Ritchie, through attorney Lucy H. Deakins, argued after his conviction that a biased juror had improperly sat on his case.
What the Appeals Panel Found
Writing for the unanimous three-judge panel, Judge Elizabeth L. Harris concluded that Juror P's comments did indicate bias against Ritchie, finding that her trauma prevented her from fully engaging with the proceedings. Harris wrote that Juror P never withdrew her original view that her trauma affected her ability to be fair, and traced her inability to be impartial to her own experience as a victim of a crime similar to the one Ritchie was accused of committing. The panel — Harris along with Judges Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov and Christina F. Gomez — ruled 3-0 to order a new trial.
Before the appeals court, Assistant Solicitor General Patrick A. Withers argued that Juror P's trauma and inattentiveness did not establish actual bias, saying her concerns were about mental health and focusing on the evidence rather than any bias against Ritchie. Deakins countered that a juror who cannot pay attention to, perceive, evaluate and weigh the evidence at trial cannot render an impartial verdict. The appellate panel agreed with Deakins.
The Underlying Killing in Longmont
Ritchie stood trial in 2023 for the murder of Jason Schaefer, who was killed in Longmont two years before that trial. Prosecutors alleged Ritchie was complicit in Schaefer's slaying while Devan Schreiner, who had a child with Schaefer, fired the gun. According to the Daily Camera, prosecutors said Ritchie, who was having an affair with Schreiner, helped her commit the murder by tracking Schaefer through Longmont.
This is not the first time Colorado's appellate courts have confronted a trial judge's refusal to excuse a juror who voiced doubts about their own impartiality. In a 2021 Garfield County case, the Court of Appeals reversed a conviction and ordered a new trial after finding a biased juror had been allowed to serve without being properly rehabilitated, per a separate Colorado Politics report. That ruling held that when a prospective juror cannot commit to being impartial, a challenge for cause should be granted, reflecting the broader constitutional guarantee that criminal defendants are entitled to a fair trial decided by an impartial jury weighing only the evidence presented.
