Deviant Criminology
Dr. Richard Weaver Jr., Heather Kenney, and Rachel Czar take listeners on a journey through the world of true crime. With their unique careers in the criminal justice and academic world; they work to provide an entertaining and educational experience for listeners. This podcast examines many areas of true crime including; the formation of laws, cases that defined caselaw, and crimes that impacted the world. Please join us on this journey as we transition from professionals in criminal justice and academia to budding podcasters.
Deviant Criminology
Heather's Blind Episode: Terry Barton and the Hayman Fire
What if one moment of personal crisis could ignite a wildfire of unimaginable chaos and destruction? Join us as we delve into the story of the Hayman Fire of 2002, the largest wildfire in Colorado's history, with over 137,000 acres consumed. We explore the complexities of the fire's origin, the media's amplification of the disaster, and the philosophical dilemmas that arose during legal proceedings. With Heather leading our conversation, we dissect the far-reaching impact of this catastrophe and question the role of justice and truth in society.
Our discussion takes a closer look at Terry Barton, the conservation officer at the center of the Hayman Fire. With her personal struggles, including a troubled marriage, we explore the narratives and motives that surfaced during investigations. This episode shines a light on the scapegoating and misinformation that can arise in crises, challenging listeners to empathize with Barton's situation. We also navigate the legal labyrinth she faced, from admissions to restitution demands, and the broader implications for her and the community.
The episode culminates in a reflection on the ethical considerations of restitution and sentencing in such cases. We tackle the intricacies of navigating multiple legal systems, the concept of double jeopardy, and the challenges in assigning fair restitution. By examining the appeals process and the personal toll on Barton, we invite you to ponder justice, responsibility, and the ripple effects of individual choices. This is a conversation that goes beyond the fire to explore the human stories entwined in its aftermath.
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This week, heather has decided to take me on a blind case instead of a blind date, so I have no idea what is going on here, but we're just going to roll with it. I'm going to see what comes with the punches here and see what I can add to this episode. So again, I'm Richard.
Speaker 3:I'm Heather.
Speaker 2:And let's go. I want to hear this.
Speaker 3:So we're going to talk about a case today involving Terry Barton and the Hayman fire. Out a case today involving Terry Barton and the Hayman fire. This specific case is going to have some interesting aspects to look at, including double jeopardy, specifically state versus federal laws, fairness of restitution and, of course, where some of those things come. As far as the fairness, we used to have the debtors prison in England that we said we would never have here. So what is it to really be fair if you're taking people in a criminal setting and making them pay money? And then also the idea of how much does the truth matter. Does it really matter what is or is not the truth when it comes to details, and how many details do you need to feel are true before you give up an investigation? And that's probably more of a cop question than anything else. So let's start off a little bit of the factual basis.
Speaker 2:You're pushing me to bring back. I did take, besides the police academy, I went to fire and arson death investigation school, but that's been more years than I care to admit, so we'll see if I can recall anything here to add to this.
Speaker 3:Hopefully you will. Hopefully you'll find it interesting. If nothing else, we can have some good philosophical discussions about some of those other issues. So the facts of the case.
Speaker 3:The Hayman fire was started in 2002, more than 20 years ago, which does not seem like it, which means I must be getting super old and it eventually spread to 137,000 acres in Pike National Forest. At that point in time, it was the largest wildfire in Colorado's history and it covered parts of Douglas, jefferson Park and Teller counties. In the end, it ended up costing about $40 million to fight the fire. It burned 133 homes, one commercial building, 466 outbuildings. It forced the evacuation of about 8,000 people. It forced the evacuation of about 8,000 people and, on a tragic note, one person, ann Dow, who was 50 years old, died from an asthma attack triggered by the smoke, and five firefighters were killed in a traffic accident on their way to fight the fire.
Speaker 3:So that's the nutshell of the case. So some more details. The smoke plume that it created was massive enough to create its own weather system. The people reported seeing three 35,000-foot-high columns of smoke and fire, one of which collapsed from the weight of the particulates forming it, leaving a ground-level layer of smoke that was 50 miles wide and the temperature dropped from about 85 degrees to 65 degrees in about 20 seconds. When that column collapsed, ash was falling like snow in Denver, and on one day alone the fire spread 19 miles.
Speaker 2:So one person created Pompeii for Colorado Pretty much Okay, pretty much. My mother always told me one person could beii for Colorado Pretty much Okay, pretty much. My mother always told me one person could be successful at things I did not think it would be creating Pompeii in modern 2000s. So continue. This is horrific, right, insane, horrific.
Speaker 3:Insane. So at one point the smoke was visible for hundreds of square miles and the governor of Colorado at that time, bill Owens, took an aerial assessment and tour of the fire and when he came back the reporter asked what does it look like up there? And in response he said it looks as if all of Colorado is burning today, which of course the press truncated and reported it as him saying all of Colorado was burning, which then had a massive impact on tourism, and tourism is a big deal in Colorado. There's a lot of businesses that depend on tourism to make it and when you look up at those counties like Park and Teller and those areas, a lot of it's fishing and hunting and whitewater rafting and things that you would do during the summer months. So that was like a double impact on top of all of this damage and destruction. Now people were not coming to spend money. Who normally would be there for their vacations? Well and that A?
Speaker 2:the first thing I think about when you talk about 100,000 acres is just all the animals and wildlife also that were displaced. But I mean, I don't want to say too much because podcasting is a form of media, but leave it to the media to sensationalize something that horribly impacts the community in a way that if you'd have just left one word in there, it would have made it seem not nearly as bad, but yeah okay.
Speaker 3:Right, Right, I know. And a lot of people got mad at him for saying that, saying well, he ruined our businesses. But again, like well, what about the people who reported it? Couldn't you have said the whole story, Like it looks like all of Colorado is burning or the devastation is so immense? But no, they didn't.
Speaker 2:Sound bites are a horrible thing.
Speaker 3:Yes, exactly, just a little snippet. So eventually the the fire was contained, thank goodness, and extinguished um, but ironically the fire hit another area which had been impacted by the shown or shown over fire. I'm not familiar with the shown over fire, I just know that that's what stopped it and when it hit that burn area from where the Shonova fire had been, it ran out of fuel and it stopped and that's what prevented the fire from spreading to Evergreen and to southwest Denver, and Evergreen was already on notice to be prepared to evacuate more than 40,000 people. So it was pretty scary at that time and, depending on which way the wind blew, of course would depend on which way it spread.
Speaker 3:Some people were worried it might make it through Woodland Park and possibly even down into Colorado Springs, which since then Colorado Springs has had fires much closer to it, but it was definitely difficult at that point in time to know where it was going to end up. In addition to the primary damage that was done later, there were additional damages caused because there was flooding, because of the erosion from the burned areas, and that include roads, bridges being destroyed. There was another $25 million bill to remove sediment runoff that went into a reservoir that is used as a water source for Denver to remove sediment runoff that went into a reservoir that is used as a water source for Denver, and since the Hayman Fire, there have been three more fires that were larger than it, all of which were in 2020, as you know, 2020 was such a wonderful year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was just For everybody right, what would a COVID owe in burning Like. I can see how people in Colorado were like we're going into their little bomb shelters. At that point it sounds like it was just horrific. The see how people in colorado were like we're going into their little bomb shelters at that point it sounds like it was just horrific. The end of the world, right, yes.
Speaker 2:But also again like going back to just the response to a fire that big like, from a law enforcement perspective, not only are you having to worry about and you know, coming from a cop, this is kind of rich for me to say, but you know cops you're worried about firefighters and their access to the area and making sure that people aren't coming into the area because you've got the looky-loos they want to come see oh, it's a fire like oh, it will be safe, but you're trying to evacuate people, keep firefighters able to do their jobs and not having other distraction because people coming into the area and trying to save animals, but then just the danger that the firefighters face from the immense heat when it's burning that big.
Speaker 2:I don't, I don't care how many firefighters you bring in, you're not there to put out the fire, you're there to contain it, which is almost impossible.
Speaker 2:And that's something every time I see firefighters, especially like I worry about because my brother being a firefighter, even just in house fires and stuff, the things he's told me, the things I learned as a firefighter in the Navy everybody in the Navy learns to be a firefighter. That is just like the worst case scenario because especially I've been to Colorado a couple of times, I'm not from there but just the endless amount of fuel that comes from a forest like that they can just continue to feed it. And you know Indiana, kentucky and stuff like Kentucky, eastern Kentucky, you have a lot of endless forests and stuff in Indiana Like there's usually big breaks in between a farm, fields and stuff. So if something starts to burn it's not going to have that continuous endless forest fires where Colorado, you've got all that mountain range and everything and it just I couldn't even imagine what it's like to try and set up that perimeter or the resources that had to cost just on the civil service side, not even everything else.
Speaker 3:Yeah, pretty crazy and pretty intensive for sure, and you know again as horrible as it was. Unfortunately they've had three more that were bigger than Heyman, all in 2020. So this one is now the fourth largest in Colorado history, but still horrible.
Speaker 2:Were the others. Do you know if the others were all accidental or were some of those also?
Speaker 3:I haven't looked into those.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:So, because I was more focused on this, because it's something older, but in 2020, they also did a fire burn study covering multiple fires from like the 90s I think one might even been in the 80s Hayman fire was part of it, several in New Mexico, several in Colorado, and when all of this happened 20 years ago, people were saying in 20 years it'll be fine, the forest will come back. It's just part of the circle of life. But this study in 2020 that was conducted by University of Colorado, boulder, found that many of the burn areas were not coming back as forests, but were instead coming back as grasslands and shrublands Because, for whatever reason, with the different shifts in weather rain, heat, whatever that area the Southern Rocky Mountains it's becoming an unsuitable environment for ponderosa pine and Douglas fir, which is what makes up most of the forests. So, in addition to losing it out 20 years ago, now, it appears that it's not coming back.
Speaker 2:Remember kids. Only you can prevent forest fires. Obviously that didn't get passed on from the 80s.
Speaker 3:So true, so true, can prevent forest fires. Obviously that didn't get passed on from the 80s. So true, so true, and I actually knew somebody that was rumored to have been the person who recorded that. So another little side note somebody I worked with in colorado smoky bear.
Speaker 2:So yeah, exactly, and smoky bear exactly.
Speaker 3:so you might ask like how did all that start right? All that devastation, all that like mind-boggling destruction impact. How did all this start? Well, Terry Barton and maintaining trails for ATVs and patrolling dispersed campsites to enforce the campfire ban that had been issued by the Forest Service. Due to the dry conditions, and while she was working, on the afternoon of June, the 8th 2002, she radioed for help to contain a rapidly expanding wildfire. And it was over the next 17 days, due to the high temperatures, the relatively low humidity, the high winds, that again the fire spread to 138,000 acres, most of which was in the US forest.
Speaker 3:Now, during the investigation of the fire this is, you know, the part that I think you'll find more interesting Terry was interviewed several times and, of course, told several different versions of the events. Even at the civil trial, which was years after the events, her accounts were not consistent in that trial with what she had said in the criminal courts. So, if we're being honest, we will probably never know what actually happened that day or why, because she was the only one who was out there who can tell us what really happened.
Speaker 2:Oh, before I know, was she smoking Was she smoking.
Speaker 3:You'll just have to wait. Probably not.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, because I mean that would be my—was she doing a baby reveal? That seems to be pretty popular in California to start forest fires.
Speaker 3:No, not a baby reveal, although that might.
Speaker 2:That would have been a better story. That would have been a better story. That would have been a better story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, at least there would have been like some silver lining, happy point to it instead of just all sad, so she's an actual conservation officer. Yes, okay, yes, and so part of her job is to make sure that there's no campfires and to enforce the burn ban. So it's not like she doesn't know there's a burn ban, because her job is to make sure there is no fire, which is another twist to it.
Speaker 2:That again, it's like oh my gosh, I can't believe this. I now actually sadly feel ironic about bringing up Smokey Bear, because I feel like she let down her coworker right now.
Speaker 3:She did, she absolutely did, absolutely 100%.
Speaker 2:I'm in on this. Okay, where are we going?
Speaker 3:So at first, because she was the one who radioed in, everybody knew that she was being interviewed and was a key part of the investigation, and I couldn't find any support of this documented in the news anywhere. But in the community the rumor was that she had said that she had come across a group of Hispanic men in pickup trucks that had been camping, told them they had to put their campfire out. She left. When she came by later they were already gone but the fire was spreading and she couldn't contain it, and so I couldn't find that like. Just to be clear, I couldn't find that documented anywhere, but that had been a rumor in the first couple hours when all of this was unfolding. But that being said, again, if it's a rumor within the community, you also don't know how true it is, because you know people say things and you never know exactly where they got their source.
Speaker 2:No, but that is something like, unfortunately, horrific fact that you see across law enforcement is, when people make a mistake, either purposeful or accidental, the first thing to do is to blame people of color or minorities or teenagers, and so I'm not saying that did happen. Like I said, it's a rumor, but unfortunately, the minorities and teens seem to be scapegoats for incidents like this. So, again, we don't know that it happened, but it matches up with prior stuff. That happens constantly, but it matches up with prior stuff.
Speaker 3:That happens constantly and luckily nobody actually went out and found this truck full of people because, whether she said it or not or whether it came wherever the source started that rumor was there. So there were people who were angrily looking for this pickup truck with the mystery people. No matter where the information started, that was the end result. People were looking for these people who they thought started the fire. Luckily, nobody ever found these people. Nothing happened to any innocent people who were misidentified, so that's the good part of it.
Speaker 3:The Denver Post reported that she initially told investigators that she was out on patrol, smelled smoke, investigated, found a campfire that was out of control. Another source said that another forest worker reported a suspicious golden colored vehicle in the area which matched her vehicle and eventually she admitted to starting the fire. So in her written confession she said that she and her husband were not speaking and they were going through a divorce. The morning of the fire he informed her that he had burned their divorce papers that he was supposed to sign and he gave her a letter which she took with her to work at 8 am and when she was out on patrol she came across a fire ring and decided to get rid of the letter right now. So, as a law enforcement officer, if you heard somebody report that, what would be your initial assessment or thoughts?
Speaker 2:So there was a divorce. The husband says no, I'm not signing this, but sends her some type of letter. Is it like an apology letter? Like we know any more about the letter?
Speaker 2:we don't okay, just it's. There's some letter that's pissed her off enough that she's going to go out and break her job in her oath to emotionally set this letter fire. I'm more wondering how just lighting a letter on fire would start such a huge fire and how, with her knowledge and training, she would lose control of a fire that she wasn't supposed to set in the first place. And if it was in a fire pit, there's just a lot of Something you're telling me is not right and there's a clue there, and especially if she's changed her story already before it gets to this point.
Speaker 2:Because usually investigations, especially when you're investigating somebody that works with the courts or is a police officer and something it always starts with I'm trying to, I was trying to help, I was responding to something and then slowly over time, they insert themselves more into what was happening, like oh well, I came on scene first where originally it was just like oh, I was told to you. So I'm definitely wanting to look in more but also see what the forensics says about origin of the fire and look at photos and stuff. But something about that doesn't add up Like that's a small piece of paper. To start, even on basic knowledge of fires. That doesn't sound right.
Speaker 3:Which one of the things that I found suspicious is you want to get rid of this letter right now. That was her phrase. She wanted to get rid of it right now. Of all of the ways you can get rid of a letter, why would you set it on fire During a burn ban? Knowing what you know, knowing what your job is, knowing what the risk is, why would you not rip it up, you know, eat it, put water on it, like? There's a million different ways you could get rid of something right now without setting it on fire.
Speaker 2:But did you say? She said that her husband had burned.
Speaker 3:Burned their divorce papers in a different state. So, maybe, and then came home and said I burnt them. Here's this letter.
Speaker 2:Maybe that was. I mean again, I'm way speculating on this but it was the imagery in them I don't know exactly how to put that, but you burned this, I'm going to burn that Like that was instilled in her mind of how to destroy something because of what he had said, and it was her way of retaliating. Will you burn the divorce? Well, I'm going to burn what you did, kind of like you punched me, I'm going to punch you, even though maybe that's not the right response, but even then, still, that doesn't seem like that little piece of paper would ignite what is being described to me.
Speaker 3:So after that we have that written confession. The morning after the confession the investigators are doing their investigation and they contact her husband and he says I didn't give her any letter. And then that same investigator, who's digging more and looking for other things, finds out that she actually spent the night at a friend's house. So the morning after the confession the investigators contact her husband, who state that he didn't give her any letter. And then that same investigator goes on to find out that barton had spent the night before the fire at a friend's house and never came home before she went to work okay.
Speaker 2:So, friend, sounds suspicious to me, like I stayed at a friend's house, um.
Speaker 2:But also I mean kudos to the police to not just taking what she said at face value, because sometimes you have the like that's the the cake to answer it's easy, okay, cool, like it was an accident, we can just run off of it. But they followed, followed up, reached out to the husband, said, hey, we need, and you know, people be like, oh well, that's what cops do. No, I'm going to be honest, they don't all the time, you know. But I think now in this situation I think you have a massive fire is spreading, so there's no way. So I at least give them props. But that definitely tells me that whoever was interviewing her was able to tell that something wasn't right, that there was more to the story, and I don't know if a lot of times in this you'll have an arson investigator that's also with law enforcement. That's like, hey, what she's saying doesn't match up with what we're seeing. So it sounds like you had a good team in Colorado that was working this.
Speaker 3:So we get that information, which I also agree with you excellent team that was working on this. And after they get all of this information and the friend was the one who said she spent the night at my house. It wasn't like she said, I was with a friend. A friend said she was with me that night. Just to make sure that that part of it's clear. During her civil trial, when she was trying to explain the discrepancy of, he gave me a letter that morning. No, I didn't give her any letter that morning. She wasn't even there that morning because he said when I woke up she was gone. He didn't even know. She wasn't there the night before. During the civil trial, she said that she got the letter a day or two earlier, but then in an interview with the Colorado Gazette she said that the letter had been written months before the fire.
Speaker 2:Do you know if there was ever actually divorce papers? Was that even true?
Speaker 3:I don't know that anybody verified that, but I would think it would be hard to track down if nothing had been filed or, on the flip side, it'd be hard to figure out for sure what was going on, Because if you do file for separation, that doesn't necessarily mean you have divorce papers ready. It doesn't necessarily mean you have divorce papers ready and it doesn't ever specify in any of the things I've read whether it was separation agreement or the actual divorce settlement or exactly what phase they were in. I don't know if what he was signing was what was to initiate the divorce, but according to the community and the rumor mill, they definitely were having a difficulty in their relationship and things were not happy at home.
Speaker 2:Was the friend the issue, nope, female friend.
Speaker 3:Female friend Like family friend yeah, family friend. So, as more and more inconsistencies come up about this letter, in her confession she said that she didn't read it, but when she talked to the Colorado Springs Gazette, in their article she said it was about details about the couple's separation agreement In 2008,. She said she did read the letter, but it contained an apology saying he wanted to work things out and then to further complicate matters, months after the initial interview, john said that he did give Terry a letter, after having told the investigators I didn't give her a letter when the investigation first started. And then her daughter, when she testified, she said that a psychology teacher had told her mother, terry Barton, to write her feelings in a letter and burn it, and so her daughter never said that that's exactly what happened, but it was implied that maybe Terry wrote the letter herself and then set it on fire.
Speaker 2:A ladies and gentlemen, not promoting her criminal behavior, but get your shit straight. If you're going to try and tell people stuff and don't talk to the media, that's not going to go with my. Don't talk to the police without a lawyer. Don't talk to the media. Don't Also have your story straight, because that's one of the things you see over time is, I can understand like some little details changing, but these are massive details that are changing. And the other question I have about John I guess that would have been her husband is you said it was a couple of years later he made that statement. Was it still her husband?
Speaker 3:I believe so.
Speaker 2:So now do you have a reason to lie to help her, protect her, especially if they're married at the time? Again, I'm a lot of like hearsays to this that you may have some details on, but I'm pretty sure she's going to get sued and it's going to be her. So her even her personal estate is going to be at risk, which would mean his personal estate because they're married at the time. So now he has even more motivation to maybe lie and feed. Oh, this had to be an accident. Yes, I did give her a letter and it was really negative and at the time I was in a bad place and I can understand that she burned it. Basically, don't take my stuff.
Speaker 3:And also they have two teenage daughters. So there's another complication that you know on some level. Yeah, hopefully, if you're a good person, when you have children with somebody else you have some interest in hoping that that person does well because it impacts your child. I know not everybody is that way. I know some people are very vindictive and angry and they don't care that destroying that other person will impact their children. But them having two children together, I think, also complicates maybe what his motives might have been or his feelings in those regards. To make things even more fun and interesting, no paper was ever found. In the analysis by the ATF, investigators found three matches in the debris. Barton initially complained she used only one match. Found three matches in the debris. Barton initially complained she used only one match. Then she produced a matchbook with three missing matches. But the ATF concluded that the matches found did not come from that matchbook.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm just going to go and say the ATF are very good at what they do and especially when you're talking 2000s, they had the technology to tell that. But yeah, I'm sure initially she would have gotten rid of that matchbook the original one. So she knows what she did was wrong, like she. And do you know if all three matches were found in the same spot or were there?
Speaker 3:they found in different areas they just said that there were three that were found. I didn't ever narrow down exactly where it was that they found them, just that they were found in the debris.
Speaker 2:Because the only reason I ask that is if they were all found together, then okay, you could say it was one incident. But if you've got three matches and feet apart, then now you've got three sources of starting the fire, so it definitely looks a lot more intentional than that. So I was just wondering on that.
Speaker 3:And on the paper evidence. When I was reading through it, the person from the ATF who was talking about it said that he conducted his own experiment in the backyard. I don't know if it was related to this case or just something he did in general, because as law enforcement officers at least for me I watch other people do trials to get information and I think that officers probably also run little experiments to see, like, well, what happens with this or that if it comes up in a case. And I think that was what he was doing. I don't think it was directly related to this case, but he burned papers in his own backyard and let it sit out there for months, you know, with rain and wind and everything else, and months later when he did his own analysis from the materials in his own backyard he could find paper pieces. So from that investigator who was making the comments from the ATF, he said, basically, if there's no paper ever found, that means there was not paper to begin with, was his feeling.
Speaker 2:I always this is totally, totally unrelated, but kind of funny. Um, when I was a cop and stuff, I got to deal with atf agents. Every once on. There are always like super neat people. But my brother, jeff, once he worked a gas station. It got robbed and he had a meet with an atf agent and I don't remember the agent's name or anything but. But Jeff met him and the guy was like I'm special agent, so-and-so with the Department of Alcohol, tobacco, firearms and Explosives. And Jeff's immediate reaction was you represent everything I love. And the guy he said just responded with yes, sir, I do so. Every time I met an ATF agent I always had to tell him that story and it made him laugh. It fits, jeff, you know Jeff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a very good assessment, absolutely, and I have to agree like there's a lot of good things about the ATF they do wonderful investigations for one, and along with that, the firing we mentioned the firing. The firing itself also brought more questions than answers, because there was grass growing inside of it, indicating it had not been used in a while. But, based on the hot, dry, windy conditions of the day of the fire, the investigators felt that the grass inside the ring would have been burned in the fire, and they said that it also appeared that the ring had been recently altered, as there was a larger rock that seemed to be propped up on top of a smaller one, creating an opening in the fire ring, and the investigators could see where the rocks had been located, based on indentations in the dirt.
Speaker 2:What was her employment history and record like at this time?
Speaker 3:Other than working for the Forest Service in record, like at this time, Other than working for the Forest Service she worked some odd job type things to try to supplement her income and I'll talk about that in a little bit, about some issues she had with her husband to try to help support their family and their two daughters.
Speaker 2:But do you know if there was any problems at work, had she been written up? Was she possibly like was this a retaliation specifically towards them? Because sometimes and again you see this with firefighters and there's a lot of stories, and not calling firefighters out do not dm me, but we're like firefighters, they'll set fires, kind of to be the person to show up and put it out. Um kind of you see that with medical people too. They'll make somebody sick to try and break them back. So they're the heroes. So I didn't know, like maybe this was something like oh, I could start a small fire, I could contain it and not realizing how quickly it would get out of control, or a retaliation against if she'd gotten written up recently or anything. So that would be another aspect I would have looked at as an investigator, like what's your employment record right now? Or you having problems with the supervisor or something.
Speaker 3:One of those things you hit on, I think personally, I think is pretty close to something that I think happened. Obviously we won't ever know, but from all accounts, nobody had any knee beefs with her. She seemed to be a wonderful model person and had no difficulties at work. So many believe, like you said, that she intentionally set the fire so she could put it out and be the hero, and I personally think that that's probably what happened, just because, again, there was grass inside the fire ring and there's destruction everywhere all around it. And the fact that the grass inside the fire ring and there's destruction everywhere all around it, and the fact that the grass inside the fire ring didn't burn even in the midst of this ginormous forest fire, to me is unbelievable. I'm not a fire specialist, but to me, when you look around and there's 137,000 acres just destroyed and gone, the idea that you'd have a circle with grass still in it to me is just strange, especially if that was where it all started yeah, that is really.
Speaker 2:And again, firefighters do not dm me on or send me hate mail, but I would love, like someone's, to message me and tell me if I'm right on this or wrong. But but if the at the center of origin, it would spread outwards and the heat in that area would not be as high as it was as it started to gain fuel with the trees and everything, because the clearing would obviously clear. There's not a lot of trees there but as it started to spread outwards, it's not going to spread back inwards, I wouldn't think, and the heat wouldn't be enough to go through the rock to ignite what's inside the fire pit. So it would make sense that it didn't start there and that everything would go outwards, because the heat's getting more intense as it moves outwards. It's not going to come back into that cone or that center.
Speaker 3:But then it makes you think it didn't start in that center point.
Speaker 2:Oh so, but then it makes you think it didn't start in that center point.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely no, I don't see how it could have. So eventually, the recitation of events given during her final interview on June 15th 2002, becomes what's recorded in the criminal court, and that is that Terry Barton admitted that she started the fire on June 8th when she burned a letter from her estranged husband during a fire ban, and that she used a fire ring but left before making sure that the fire was completely out, and that at some point she radioed for help when she discovered the fire. And one account said she was driving away but returned looking for a faster route to get out of the forest and then noticed that the flames were approaching the trees. In that account she said that she used a shovel to try to move dirt to try to suppress the fire, but she could not remember the details of how she tried to stop the flames. So it was another interesting one where she says she tried to but she couldn't remember the details about how she tried to.
Speaker 2:So if we're going to go with that as the official story, I could see that because I know just from personal experiences and then my studies then high stress, high, like okay, I didn't mean to start this fire, but I did something, I wasn't supposed to that when you're trying to do stuff in an emergency situation that there can be gaps in your memory. Like I remember grabbing a shovel, I remember there being dirt out in a hole, but I don't remember digging the hole. You'll hear officers. Like I remember firing the shot, but I don't ever remember pulling my gun. Like there's these. So I can understand that. Like I will give her that, that there could be these blinks just because either your brain filters it or just the way your brain records things in intense traumatic areas. If it's not creating the memory and the synapses to create and form that memory in your brain, I can I get it. Like I'm not going to hold that against her. There may be gaps in that, but the big changes in the story there's definitely something there.
Speaker 3:So at that point the investigation stops. So you might say, well, why did the investigation not continue? And that's one of the things we talked about at the beginning, as far as like, what point do you stop looking for the truth and what point does it matter what the truth is? And basically, in this instance is why? To answer the question why we stopped, or why they stopped, or why the investigation stopped, because it just didn't matter at that point, because the motive didn't matter for the criminal case, no matter how it started, no matter which version of events you looked at, no matter why she lit the match. At the end of the day she was the one who lit the match and so that's all that mattered. Why she actually lit. It didn't matter for the arson count. So people stopped digging into it on that aspect because from the criminal side, it didn't matter. Additionally, you might say, well, wouldn't the community want to know? Wouldn't people have an interest and say I want to know why this happened? But apparently she was very well liked in the community.
Speaker 3:It was reported that she cooked dinners for people when they had no money. So when people were there for seasonal work and it was off season and they didn't have money, she'd cook them dinner. One of her friends said that if she caught a mouse in her house she would set it free and have a catch and release policy with the mice. Another report said that there was a couple that both people had cancer and they were dying. They wanted to make a trip to Kansas to visit their family before they passed away and she was the only one to step up and she volunteered and she drove them to Kansas because they both had cancer and they couldn't drive so that they could visit their family. And there were more than 40 people who wrote character letters for her when she went to her state sentencing hearing. So she was described as a hardworking mom of two with a husband struggling with an alcohol addiction, and that he would disappear for months at a time. So that was what the community reported when it came time for her sentencing hearing.
Speaker 2:So did she say that the letter? If you're telling me that, like again, I? I don't know the stuff behind this case, but to me it generally sounds like a decent person who, if she's trying to reconcile with somebody that has a substance use disorder and that letter may have been one he wrote days, weeks, months about how I'm going to change, I'm going to go to rehab or I'm going to get something, and he wrote days, weeks, months about how I'm going to change, I'm going to go to rehab or I'm going to get something, and he breaks it again and he suddenly disappears. That she's angry, that you know what I've heard this so many times and maybe she I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt on this side, because I wasn't part of this in some time and it does sound like she was a good person in a bad place and made a really bad decision.
Speaker 2:You'll probably correct me here shortly more on that but I could see that she felt betrayed by that and not thinking of everything else, just her own personal anger. Like I'm done, like I'm just going to burn this Maybe it didn't take the first time, the second time, like I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt, which is odd coming from me, but it's sad and I think the husband with the substance use disorder really adds to it that maybe she was so mad and felt so betrayed that this this, unfortunately was the one day she chose to do something about this thing she was probably carrying with her of all these promises he had made so that's kind of in line with what one of her friends said.
Speaker 3:One of her friends wrote I truly believe terry caused the hayman fire during a moment of pure distress and frustration. Most of us have had moments like these when reason and clarity are overshadowed by despair. That ended up being a sentiment that the federal judge agreed with when he did the sentencing on the federal side of it. So procedural history on this there's federal and there's state prosecutions on both sides. So double jeopardy, you might say. Well, isn't double jeopardy going to be in play here? And I'll let you, you know, take a stab at explaining what double jeopardy would mean to you as a law enforcement officer, and then I'll explain it the way I would feel it would work.
Speaker 2:So my aspect of double jeopardy from a law enforcement officer. I'm going to call the prosecutor's office and ask them what double jeopardy is. So if you would go ahead and answer that for me, I would appreciate that.
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. Essentially, it's whenever you're living someplace you can be bound under different sets of laws at the same time. So think of it this way If you live in a city for instance Chicago would be an easy example there's gun laws specifically for Chicago and you have to follow those, but there's also gun laws for the state of Illinois and you have to follow those. But then there's also gun laws for the state of Illinois and you have to follow those. But then there's also gun laws for our country, things that are enforced by the ATF. So if you break a law in Chicago, you could be charged in their municipal level because you broke Illinois state law, or you could be charged at the federal level because you've broken federal laws. So that's how she ends up getting charged with both a state crime and a federal crime. And a lot of people think of that whole devil jeopardy I can't be tried twice for the same crime. Well, kind of yes, kind of no.
Speaker 2:Isn't the concept really? You can't be tried for the same offense in the same court, so you couldn't be charged by the state twice. If you're acquitted, they can't come back after you again, Correct? But if you're found guilty there and for anybody out there that's a veteran you can get messed over four times, because you also can be held by the UCMJ and charged there too.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Do you remember that about the military Right? Multiple guys would get in trouble, out in what we call out in the town and then come back and the military's like, oh, we're also prosecuting you, you can't. Yeah, it's totally.
Speaker 3:We used to have that problem in Colorado also, because Colorado Springs has a lot of military presence and up at Cripple Creek, which is in Teller County, it's a gambling town. They have alcohol and around 2000, 2003-ish, there was a lot of deployments going on, and so we would have people who were 18, getting ready to be deployed, come up they want to experience certain things before they go overseas, and perhaps not come back, and they would drink and they would gamble, and then somebody would figure out that they were not 21. And then they would get in trouble because then they'd have these charges for underage drinking and gambling when they weren't 21. But hey, we know you're getting ready to leave for the Middle East, so we'll just hold on to this and when you come back you can sort it out then. And, of course, had to deal with the military ramifications on top of what we did to them.
Speaker 2:And God forbid you come across the prosecutor that just holds you and then you miss your deployment because now you're AWOL off of a combat deployment and that's a shit show.
Speaker 3:I actually heard of that happening once.
Speaker 3:It was not the case that I had, but one of the officers I worked with, who was ex-military, had to deal with it because there was an alleged domestic violence case where he was being deployed.
Speaker 3:They went up a couple drinking, gambling Something, started a fight, they were arguing and from what I recall from what the officer said because I never read any of the reports or anything like that it wasn't a huge disturbance, but there was some pushing and some shoving and some name-calling and the police were called, which of course that made it a domestic. And for Colorado they have mandatory arrest for the primary perpetrator, which means that he was getting arrested and you're held mandatorily until you see the judge, which is the following day. So he missed his deployment because he was in the county jail waiting to see the judge on his domestic case. Wow, and the officer who had to arrest him basically he knew what was going to happen. He was basically like hey, you screwed up and you made a really bad choice and this is what's going to happen and it sucks. And I'm military and I know that this is going to suck way worse for you than if you weren't in the military and I'm sorry for that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I got nothing there.
Speaker 3:Not fun times.
Speaker 3:So when she was charged in the federal court, she was charged with four counts but then, pursuant to a plea agreement, she entered a guilty plea to setting a fire to inflammable materials on federal lands and making false statement within the jurisdiction of the United States.
Speaker 3:She was sentenced to six years in federal prison and restitution was to be determined by the court, noting that there was an agreement between the parties, a stipulation that the damages would be approximately $38 million, that the damages would be approximately $38 million. In the pre-sentence report the prosecution explained that, despite the $38 million amount mentioned in the plea agreement, that they were not going to seek an order to reflect the actual loss, not the suppression cost, but instead a mere $14.7 million for the cost of the emergency revegetation in the Hayman Fire area. And if you're wondering what an emergency revegetation means, there's an emergency due to the imminent threat of erosion, so they're going to try to get vegetation to take and they are going to spend $14.7 million. And in the pre-sentence report they noted that this amount was an appropriate amount and mandated by law. It was who.
Speaker 2:Is this an appropriate amount for Cause? I'm going to go back to this is a woman who's working, from what I understand, multiple jobs, because her husband is suffering from a substance use disorder, which is a disease and an issue, and she's trying to raise two kids. I don't think $14,000 would have been realistic, let alone $14 million. So I'm not really I don't know. Sometimes those things bother me Like I don't know. I understand that you feel like you have to put a tag on it and say we won this victory. You ain't getting nothing out of this. So I don't know why you're, unless the whole goal is every dime this woman makes for the rest of her life, the course it's going to take.
Speaker 3:And that's one of the things that the federal judge struggled with, and he found that there had not been an agreement about restitution because it merely indicated that that amount was mentioned and thought to be an appropriate amount for the 38. But he said that it was agreed that the loss was between 20 and 50 million dollars. And the court found that the key question was what was the value of Pike National Forest and what is it now? And so the court latched onto that idea and said, even though it was noted in the statute and it specifically states that the inability to pay can be a factor in determining the payment but not the amount. So you specifically in the statute it says you cannot come in and say I can't pay it, so don't make me owe it. Where that factor comes into is you can come in and say I can't pay it, and then the court can say yeah, you're right, you can't pay it, you're going to go to prison, you're going to make 50 cents a day in the laundry facility, so you need to pay us 25 cents a week or something like that, so they can figure in that income part of it for the payments but not for the actual amount owed. So that's what the law states.
Speaker 3:But the judge looking at this and struggling with it Judge, you know, looking at this and struggling with it said you know, basically, as he's looking at it, he says this is not an easy case, determining the amount is not easy and that, as it was a criminal case, a condition of supervised probation would be that she would have to pay this back and that that could be in effect for 20 years and it can even be renewed after that. And it can even be renewed after that. And he stated, quote If I sentence Terry Barton to pay 14, almost 15 million, I'm sentencing her to a life in which she will be yoked to the burden of debt that makes her situation pretty hopeless. Anybody convicted of a felony has trouble finding a job when they finish their prison term, and when you have a debt like this, that means that collection activities can be conducted even after the person has served the term of supervised release and is otherwise free. That is a debt that is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. You live with it and you know there is still, I think in the criminal law, despite all of the formulas that we have and sentencing guidelines and these things, there's still a place for moral judgment. That's why sentences are still imposed by judges instead of computers.
Speaker 3:And there is, in this case, a great concern of mine in exercising moral judgment as to whether this woman should be sentenced to a lifetime of poverty, because that's what this restitution order would mean. And so then the judge latched onto a provision in the Victims Restitution Act regarding determining complex loss calculations, and essentially what that part of the statute says is that when you're trying to determine an amount that would prolong the sentencing or delay the process to a degree that the need of providing restitution to the victim is outweighed by the burden on the sentencing process, no restitution is required. So that's what he was latching onto. He was saying that it's too complicated for me to figure out the amount, and trying to figure out the amount is not going to be beneficial in the long term to the victim compared to what we're going to have to go through to determine what the amount should be. So he continued and this is this is another quote.
Speaker 3:So as I come to this issue, I reflect on how does one value a forest? How do you value this natural resource? Do you talk about it as how many timber sales? How much timber could be harvested there and what the government could recover as a result of that. Do you value it for its recreational use, what it means to people who make recreational use of the forest? Do we assign an aesthetic value to it? Do we give it a value because of its environmental it being an environmental asset important to sustaining life? And he was going through that thought process of how do you value this?
Speaker 3:And as he was going through noting the unreasonable, how unreasonable it was to determine this value other than to say it's priceless, he concluded with saying uniquely comes that this case uniquely comes within this provision that permits the court to not order restitution, saying that the value of the property on the date of the damage, the loss or destruction does create such a complex issue of facts that determining with some accuracy would require lengthy proceedings. So at that point now, the court's avoiding making the decision. He's finding a way to let her out and not have to pay it and not have to pay for the destruction she's caused, and he's also trying to narrow it so that it's not going to be applicable to other cases. Because he specifically said when it comes to this value of the land, how are we going to try to evaluate this. So he's trying not to make something broad where it's like anytime you can't pay, we're just going to toss this out for this exception. So in the end he concludes, quote I am not going to sentence Miss Barton, as I've already said, to a life of poverty.
Speaker 3:It might be more humane to sentence her to life imprisonment. At least she'd get square meals and a place to sleep. And I'm not going to do that. And I believe that this position is justified by the language of this statute and I don't believe in adopting this language. The Congress of the United States respectfully had in mind restitution of almost $15 million of a person who was employed by the Forest Service, making about $25,000 and who will have a great deal of trouble finding another job when she gets out of prison. So I'm not going to impose an order of restitution based on my determination that this comes within the language of the statute. I mean.
Speaker 2:I think sum it all up You're not going to pay this, there's no ability for us to make you pay this, and the reality is the prison's time is about all you're going to get. The only other thing and again I play these devil advocates of well, okay, we can't make you pay, but we could send you to 50 years of community service where every weekend you have to go plant trees. I mean, that seems kind of like I don't know somewhat reasonable. Like go back and fix. I mean, she's never going to be able to pay it, most people aren't going to be able to pay that. But at least go do volunteer work there. At least try to repair what you did, because and even in her darkest intentions and I go again, I know with crime it's not about intent as much as about what I mean. It is about intent, but it's about the extent to what your crimes did. Like, oh, I just meant to slash my husband's tire. I didn't know that it was going to end up causing him to wreck into six other people. But you also have, and I'm sure this is going to come up, I don't know. Again, this is kind of fun.
Speaker 2:I like this game of let's play this case. But if you haven't even started to take into account the civil suit of families that are going to sue for the wrongful death of their family members, or the houses that were destroyed, she's never getting out of this and nobody's ever in the end getting what they want out of this. Because sure you can take it to court, even civil, and oh, your pay is 10 million dollars. Well, it's cost you money to take that civil court and you're never going to dime out this individual anyway. So there has to be a realization and I see where the judge was coming from in that. But that's, I think, the biggest problem, where people in the criminal justice system don't understand the difference of the civil side. That's a lot harder.
Speaker 2:Trying to come with those calculations and those understandings like hundreds of acres, there's more than's a lot harder. Trying to come with those calculations and those understandings like hundreds of acres there's more than just a forest. If I was got houses, so what's that house worth? Or was that house used for? If that land was used for a public forest, then it's not really the forest as much as as how much would they have made off a ticket sale each time? So it's not the lumber like yeah, time, so it's not the lumber like yeah, I understand it. Like let's not screw this lady over too much, cause I still feel like in the end, yeah, you made a bad mistake and it cost people their lives and everything else, but that wasn't your intent. I don't know. I'm a little torn here.
Speaker 3:And so that's where the federal judge was too. Um, but you know, as is always the case, I mean there's lawyers involved, there's there's another twist. I can say that because I'm a lawyer, I get to say things like that. It went up to the 10th Circuit of Appeals, the US Court of Appeals, on May, the 4th of 2004, and they ruled that she did owe restitution and their feeling was that the PSR pre-sentence report recommendation of a restitution order under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act to be paid to the United States Forest Service for their costs associated with revegetating fire-damaged forest land was a reasonable calculation, because they weren't trying to calculate loss. They weren't trying to say how much was it worth before and how much is it worth now, that none of that was being considered. It was merely the whatever. It was $15 million. This is what's going to cost to plant the new trees. We want the money to try to fix what's broken. We're not going after what might have been or trying to speculate what the value was.
Speaker 3:And then, in addition to that, when the court of appeals were looking at it, they said that Terry Barton failed to object to the pre-sentence recommendation report and by the district court refusing to order the restitution, saying it was too complex to determine the amount owed and the impact that such an order would have on her didn't matter Because she didn't object to it. Saying you can't find an amount, so him just out of the goodness of his heart, saying I can't find an amount, I don't want to do this to her. It's going to be a bad impact on her. Court of Appeals was like no. So the Court of Appeals found that the amount was based on an actual recoverable loss to the victim. She did not object to the recommendation and, as such, the complexity exception of the Victim's Restitution Act did not apply. So the court found that her financial considerations were irrelevant and they again cited the VRA expressly stating that the court shall order restitution without consideration of economic circumstances of the defendant.
Speaker 2:I guess I got to take the ethical side of this. If she had been rich, she would have been able to pay. So I think that, yeah, if somebody had hundreds of millions of dollars, they would have charged them. You've still got to put it on there. It's not that she can or can't pay it. We would hold everybody to this standard. So I guess, from an ethical standpoint, going back to just Immanuel Kant and the deontological perspective of you have laws for a reason. You can't pick and choose which ones. Because of the situation you're in, you have to. So no, I agree with the court on that one.
Speaker 3:And one of the things that always comes to my mind is that when you sentence somebody again, it's like finality. If you say you don't order any restitution and we shut the book on, this it's done. She wins the lottery Like, let's say, she wins $200 million on a scratch-off ticket or something. You can't then come back and say, well, wait a minute, remember that $14 million that you owed us. Well, now we want that. Once the judge says no, it's done, and the book is closed, it's done, you can't go back and get it. So from that aspect of it, I also feel like it should be out there, even though it's a debt she can't repay and we all know she's not going to pay it. And she might be paying, you know, the $15 a month in payments. To me, it's also to make sure that if you ever do get some type of a big windfall, that money can then go back to the victims.
Speaker 2:And it really does. I mean and I know there's calculations for this, like depending on your earned income, mean, and everything else, but she has to pay something. And no, they shouldn't be able to take everything she makes every year, but $100 a month or whatever they decide, because she has to pay back something. She still did it. And just because you don't have that much money doesn't mean you should get off scot-free. You still have to make restitution in some way.
Speaker 2:So I don't agree that the judge, with the judge saying you we're just not going to have it, but I also think it's kind of on him for not setting anything at all and kicking the can down the road because he left the door open for them to come back, also on her.
Speaker 2:So but no, I mean, you have to, you have to serve your time, you have to pay your debt. And I think you set a bad precedence if you're like, oh, we're just not going to do it because then you're setting a two-tier system. And if we're going to complain, especially coming from social work, if you're going to complain that there's a two-tier system, you can't have it only for one group of people, not for the other. So you can't say because you're poor, you can't be held to the same standard. Somebody that's rich, just like you, can't say because you're rich, you deserve to be treated different than the poor. So from a, I think as we were talking about looking at some, I didn't realize it's gonna have so many ethical twists and turns like but on, and we're just at the federal case. You said there's also state cases would be fun, but in this situation I think so far they're they're right to try and use the criminal justice system as a fairness instead of individual. You deserve different.
Speaker 3:So, as you said, that's the federal side of it. So now let's move on to the state court side. Okay, so in state court, specifically in Teller County, terry Barton was charged with arson, which is a class five felony, and she ended up getting sentenced to 12 years there, which was the maximum, and that was a 12-year prison sentence to run concurrently with the six-year federal sentence. So again, you might say, well, that's a whole lot of destruction for one count.
Speaker 3:Well, going back to the lawyer side, law enforcement side, it was one action, even though it covered four counties people. Why isn't she charged in all four counties? Because she only did one thing, she only lit one fire, one match, and so that's why she was only going to be prosecuted at a state level one time. So that, as far as the double jeopardy, or how does that work for the state side of it, that's why she could only be charged one time and because it was started in Teller County and she admitted she started it in Teller County, teller County took the jurisdiction and she pled in Teller County. Now, one of the more interesting things that again twists and turns on this case During the sentencing hearing, judge Colt referred to her special responsibility to protect the forest, the immense impact on the community, and he also noted that he himself had to leave his home one night.
Speaker 2:That's not a conflict of interest or anything Ethical dilemma there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, ethical dilemma there, right. So let's unpack that one just a little bit, because I do want to talk about that again. If you remember, this fire was, you know, 137,000 acres. You know four counties. Ashes raining in Denver because of the comments that the governor made. People on the Western slopes are losing their businesses because the tourists aren't coming. People on the western slopes are losing their businesses because the tourists aren't coming and, as far as like people who are up there in the community at the time, this is an area where cell phones did not work well. The whole reverse line. One one thing wasn't a thing then. A lot of people don't have home phones or at least at that point didn't have home phones because you have to run the wire, and when you're trying to run wires in the mountains it's very difficult. So you were talking before about the logistical nightmares for law enforcement. It was a nightmare for everybody.
Speaker 2:I can't. I mean, I know even in Kansas when you're radio sometimes like you can lose radio signal and that's a flat ass state like I can't imagine the mountains and stuff, how hard it would be to communicate with each other and everything so having to bring in potentially sat radios and all types of, just the cost well and you can't get the information to the people either no, not at all like so when the evacuation order comes, you're literally having to tell a group of deputies like, go knock door to door on every house in that addition and tell them all to pack their stuff and get out.
Speaker 3:They've got. You know, sometimes it's like you don't have any time. Don't grab anything, get in your car and go. There were people who like, were the officers you're talking about setting up a perimeter, they'd have their perimeter and they'd say everything inside of here has to be evacuated. Well then they go door to door, make everybody leave. Well then you got the person who's coming home from work and they come up to that line and they're told you can't go in there. It's an evacuated zone. What do you mean? I can't go in there. I don't know if my families are in there. I don't know if my kids are in there. I don't know if my dog's in there. My horses are stuck in there in the barn or in the pasture. What do you mean? I can't go in there. And so then law enforcement had to deal with that side of it, which you know. I can't imagine being a law enforcement officer and having to tell somebody like I understand there's people and animals that you're worried about, but I can't let you go in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's I mean. The most you can do at that point is try to relay it to responders in the area to go check that, and that's if it hasn't already been engulfed in flames, unfortunately. But I do know, and I think a lot of people would be happy to know, that EMS, law enforcement firefighters almost all of them are pet owners and lovers. So I have seen firefighters, emts, cops, risk their own lives to save a pet. But you would hope at that time that they'd had some type of communication system Like, hey, this person's in there, maybe two dogs over this house, can you sense them? And I've seen it. They're beautiful, they're cute videos. You can find them from different disasters online. But what I want to go back to for a second is you said that the federal and state federal six years state 12 to run concurrent.
Speaker 3:Correct.
Speaker 2:So to explain that to layman listeners that may not understand the difference, because sometimes this is not explained in television, which I always go back to because that's my baby Concurrent means that she'll only end up serving 12 years because the federal six years will be served during the 12. Where you really, if you want to hammer somebody and get them well, you run them consecutive. So whoever charged first would have priority. So say, the federal government went first, she would have to serve the six years in the federal pen and then, once that was done, she would have to go back to the state for another full 12 years or whatever good behavior. So that's the difference between when you hear somebody say it's concurrent or consecutive. I want to throw that out there because even I was confused about that for a long time, like I don't know the difference no, I totally do, and I actually have another point that I'll bring back on that in a minute yes, and here's another bad thing god.
Speaker 3:So when you're talking about, like he didn't disclose he had to leave for the night, the fact that he lived in Teller County to me and for the other people in the community for the defense to say, well, we didn't know he had to evacuate for the night, the rest of us were kind of like, how would you not know? We didn't know he was personally impacted, how would you not know? Like people't know he was personally impacted, how would you not know, like people across this entire state have been personally impacted? Well, we want to change a venue.
Speaker 3:We want a different judge. What judge? Somebody in Denver who had ash raining down on them? Is that the person that you want to bring in? Somebody from the Western slope who lost their business because of what the governor's comment got reported into the news? Is that who you're going to bring to bring in? Like, so, for those of us who are in the community, when they tried to say we didn't realize that he was, you know, personally impacted, we kind of we kind of all had that like what rock are you living under? So?
Speaker 2:what was the argument of saying that? Did they not initially ask for a change of venue, so later they were trying to say that there should be mistrial because they didn't know?
Speaker 3:a resentencing, exactly since it was a plea.
Speaker 2:She doesn't get a new trial, but she did want a new sentencing hearing so the defense screwed up and then tried to come back and say because they didn't again. This is lame and I'm not giving any legal advisors, calling anybody out on this one. You fucked up, um, but they should have said before even the plea like we want a change of at least judges correct so they failed on there and which? Would that be able to come back later and say that she was provided a? So what?
Speaker 3:I'm looking for ineffective assistance of counsel yes, that's what you're looking for.
Speaker 2:Yes, so could. Is that? Were they trying to? Was she trying to say that, or was this a preemptive to her saying that?
Speaker 3:Well, that's another one of those questions, and she was represented by the Public Defender's Office, and I never want to say anything bad about public defenders.
Speaker 2:They're trying their best. I give them props. They are, they really are.
Speaker 3:They have a huge caseload. A lot of them are there trying their best. There are a few of them that I've locked horns with and I don't agree with on things, but in general they're good people and they're just trying to make the world a better place in their own way that they think they're making it better, even if I don't agree with what they're doing.
Speaker 2:Right. I mean I've always, like, had respect for public defenders and I have friends whose parents are high up in public defenders offices. But this is a small rant where I apologize, I'm going to go off on this, but I think it needs to be said sometimes that the public defender's A are understaffed, underpaid and they don't have the resources to get expert witnesses and everything else, but also their clients don't have money. So I think the public defender's office tries to do sometimes the best they can with what they have. Sometimes they don't have the best clients either, um, and they kind of get a bad reputation because, oh well, you didn't get the best plea deal or you didn't represent your client best. Well, when you don't have resources. So again, like, if I want to kind of complain about our criminal justice, then it would be that the poor really are held, and even the middle class are held, to a standard that rich aren't given to and unfortunately public defenders kind of become the scapegoat sometimes for that.
Speaker 3:And I think to some extent that is true, but I would counter that with the lower middle class, are the ones who get screwed over the most, because if you're poor, you can walk in and you can ask for a public defender and they give you a lawyer. If you make $2 more than what their little cutoff line is, you get nothing.
Speaker 2:Yes, so you know more about that than I do. That was coming strictly from like what I saw as a law enforcement officer, so I didn't even know that.
Speaker 3:So that was my problem and some of the people who were poor but had people who cared about them also got screwed over. Because if you are like, say, you're a 25-year-old, your life's gone off the rails, you're up a creek and you have wonderful parents who say you have fallen flat on your face come, stay with us until you get your life straightened out, and then we'll figure out where to go from here. Until you get your life straightened out, and then we'll figure out where to go from here. Well, now you go into your criminal case and you want to ask for a public defender because you've lost your job. You have nothing. You're crashing on your parents' couch. Well, because you're crashing on your parents' couch, when you fill out the application, their income goes on your application. So now you can't get a public defender because your parents have money even though you have nothing. If they had said screw you, get out and you're sleeping on the park bench, you would have got an attorney.
Speaker 2:I saw that when I worked in housing, because the federal definition is if couch surfing, you're not homeless. So anybody that claimed that they had a place that they could crash, you weren't homeless, you weren't open to any homeless benefits. So, yeah, a lot of the stuff that came from the state and federal government is so, on that earned income means and all that other stuff. I just said the wrong thing, I'm sure, but on the medium income means, I know if you're below it, if you're above it, the poverty line and everything else, yeah, and they look for any way to be able to. Oh, you're below it. If you're above it, the poverty line and everything else, that yeah, and they look for any way to be able to.
Speaker 3:oh, you're on your parents couch you don't have a job, you owe money to everybody, but you're still on your parents couch. So that was yeah, that was one of my personal gripes about the system from where I was at, and I always wish they would do it more on a sliding scale, so like if you were ten10 away from qualifying, okay, well, we'll pay for your stuff, but you need to pay us the $10 or whatever it is Like like we do in therapy right.
Speaker 2:Like in social work therapy, like a sliding scale. Like you make a hundred, 150, we'll cover yeah.
Speaker 3:Because there were so many defendants who would come in and they'd say things to me like I really want a lawyer but I don't qualify at the public defender's office I've talked to 10 lawyers and I can't afford any of them and you know, of course they'd ask me what can I do and I'd have to say I can't give you advice because I'm not your lawyer.
Speaker 2:I'm the one that's going against you. That's an ethical dilemma. If I answer any question for you, exactly.
Speaker 2:So, you have to go, yeah, and I think this is okay. We're kind of getting off on this, but I think it fits into this to a point, because this woman didn't have a lot of money. She was working a job dealing with all this, but she's not able to access like. I mean she did it, there's no question of that. So I mean she had to be punished and everything, but she wasn't getting adequate legal counsel.
Speaker 2:Because if you weren't even smart enough to ask for a change of venue, in that situation, I'm just I, all I can do is put my hands up Like it sucks. Like it sucks for her, it sucks for her kids, sex with the community, that she made this decision to burn this stuff. But there's no. Everything in this is a loser and the fact and not a bad there's no winners. Nobody comes out of this on top. Everybody in the end loses her, her family, family, the citizens of the community, the criminal justice system that she's now got to go into, this prison system for six to twelve years, and it's just. These are like, I hate to say, like the type of worst cases yeah, stuff like this, when there's just there's no light at the end of the rainbow.
Speaker 2:She made a bad decision. It's not like she was a bad person. She just made a bad decision and then made the decision to lie about it instead of right up front being like. This is exactly what happened. Like you said, we'll probably never know the whole truth, but I really took this on a tangent. I apologize. No, it's all good, let's get back to the state.
Speaker 3:So after Judge Colt mentioned that, about how he had had to evacuate from his own home that one night, the defense used that as a basis to appeal, citing the appearance of prejudice, and her public defender said that had she known he was affected by the fire which I don't know how you wouldn't know that the whole state was affected by it she would have asked for a different judge and a change of venue Because he failed to disclose the evacuation and sentenced her to double the presumptive range. The Court of Appeals overturned the conviction in 2004, finding that a jury would have to find aggravating factors for that sentence. And for those of you who don't understand aggravating factors I don't know how much Richie knows about those, but it's basically aggravating factors are things that the judge can say you need to be held more accountable because X, y and Z. So an aggravating factor could be something like you've robbed 14 banks and this is your 15th bank robbery. So I'm going to take that into consideration when I sentence you. Or you have mitigating factors that you could say something like.
Speaker 3:I understand this person is of a diminished mental capacity, but not so much that it could be considered a legal defense, but because of these things. I'm going to give you probation. It's your first offense. You have no criminal history. Those are mitigating factors.
Speaker 2:Like in this situation. You're emotionally distraught because of what you're dealing with your husband. Your husband's got his own mental health and substance use disorders. It's taking its toll on you. You are mad. You made a bad decision. That's a mitigating factor Correct, Aggravated factor here, in my opinion, is you are a damn conservation officer who's tasked to protect this area and you should have known better.
Speaker 3:Right, and that's the latter is what the judge focused on and when he gave her the 12 year sentence. But with what the court of appeals was saying is that in order to have that aggravated range you would have had to have had a jury find beyond a reasonable doubt that those aggravating factors were there. And that's another weird thing, like if you have somebody who has prior criminal convictions and you come to court and you say because they have these prior, there's a special I'm getting kind of head and beside myself but there's a special sentencing range where it said these are the presumptive ranges for sentences. Then there's enhancers where you can add on if they're on bond they can be subject to extra penalties If they have prior felony convictions. When you say something like three strike rules and things like that, those prior convictions are held different than just saying your normal range is two to six years. I'm going to give you six. If you have those prior felonies, then you can make it more than what the maximum sentence would normally be. So all of those things have to be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, which is always fun, because you get to the end of the trial and the jury says he's guilty and they're all like, yay, I get to go home. And then the judge turns to him and says, thanks for your service. And now you're not done, because now you have to hear from the bondsman that this person was on bond and you have to find beyond a reasonable doubt or find that they weren't on bond, which is then a bunch of paperwork. And you know, you call a person in to say, yeah, I asked for criminal history or yes, I asked for their bond paperwork and this is it. So it's always interesting when you try to prove that stuff because the jury's like it's just a piece of paper. You took judicial notice. The piece of paper's here. It says he's convicted. Why do you need us to say beyond a reasonable doubt that that's what the paper says? But that's what it is.
Speaker 3:So after the court of appeals overturned that conviction because the jury didn't find aggravating factors that would justify that sentence, the prosecutors attempted to withdraw the plea agreement, arguing that by appealing her sentence, they had violated the terms of the agreement. So then, at that point it went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court ruled that the prosecutor's office could not withdraw from the agreement. And finally, on March of 2008, after she had served nearly six years in federal prison, at her new sentencing hearing, judge Kennedy sentenced her to 15 years of probation and 1,500 hours of community service.
Speaker 3:Now, the ironic part with all of this, going back to that initial sentence and I told you there'd be like another twist to it In Colorado, that arson charge would not have been considered a crime of violence, so she would have gotten day for day credit for good time had she been finishing out her sentence without having any incidents in custody. In addition, there's other programs and things that you can do and classes that will get you more than day-for-day credit. So had she stuck with that initial sentence, she probably would have had no additional jail time at all, because she would have most likely been eligible for parole in about five years, which was the same amount of time that she was eligible for parole from the federal case. So the irony is that by the time all of her appeals were done, she was basically being released from federal prison at that point in time and then got the 15 years probation and 1,500 hours of community service, which she probably wouldn't have had to worry about that community service had they stuck with the original sentence. So that's the.
Speaker 2:That's the part that I kind of find interesting and ironic that by appealing the sentence and not getting the 12 years, she actually ended up having to do more than if they just left it alone but and again, this is not law enforcement me, this is more ethics me I think for somebody like her, a sentence for her crime makes more sense having to give back to the community she took away from than taking from the community by being put in a prison cell.
Speaker 2:Right Like and that's just me, like if you this wasn't a violent crime Again, I feel horrible when people died and I do think she has to be accountable for that, but it really was a crime against the community and the environment. So sitting in prison she's not giving back at all. Where, if she's doing this community service of you know, I say 10,000 hours, like a thousand hours, whatever I mean, I think that her time and a punishment not even punishment, reformation, because I don't even like the term punishment, even though that's how our system is based would have been you need to go out in the forest and help keep it clean. You need to go plant trees. You need to help habitat for your community replace some of the homes you brought I. You need to help habitat for your humanity replace some of the homes. I just think that's a better than just you're going and sitting in prison for 12 years. Right.
Speaker 2:Like rot away here. Yes, you did wrong, you're going to earn back what you did. Now, again, that's more of an ethic than a criminal justice fine frame, but I do think that that, yeah, she would have been out sooner. I don't think she deserved to be done sooner, but I do think her time was better spent giving back than rotting in a cell.
Speaker 3:Right. But she went to federal prison anyway, so like that, and the federal sentencing was first. So on some extent what the state court did at that point, as long as it was concurrent like you mentioned before, concurrent versus consecutive as long as it was concurrent she wasn't going to do any additional time as long as she behaved. If she had some type of a problem in prison and lost her good time credits, then she would have been there longer, but then that's a whole nother issue?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, and I don't have a problem with like six years in prison, like you've got to do your time and then come out and you do your probation and your community service, but 12 years but then that goes back to the whole.
Speaker 3:12 years is not really 12 years.
Speaker 2:I don't think people understand, isn't it? Murder is the only one that you have to serve the entire sentence that you're given. There's no good time, behavior or anything for murder.
Speaker 3:It depends state to state. Oh, that's right.
Speaker 2:Criminal justice system.
Speaker 3:You think it would be the same right if you killed somebody in one state versus another. You'd get the same penalty. No, no, that would be too simple. But that that goes back to my another one of my gripes, that I think we need to have more federal law enforcement and less local and state. Just because of that, because I don't understand how it's fair that you know we were located near c, near Cincinnati. If I kill you here, or if I go across the line and I kill you in Indiana, or I go across the line and I kill you in Kentucky, why should that potentially be three different sentences? And if I do my research, is it really fair that I could figure out where the best place is to take you to kill you in the country and go there to commit my murder?
Speaker 2:Yes, and nothing we say here is advice on anything absolutely do not look up the best state to take somebody if you're going to commit a crime absolutely don't commit crimes, but yeah, it's still, though, like ethically yeah, it's. It seems weird to be, a cop like.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it can be weird because you think one thing that you've learned in one jurisdiction and you help in another area it's completely different, or an ordinance changes and you have no idea. It's hard to keep up and I think that's one thing that we won't get off on a tangent on, but it's just keeping up with the laws and understanding what's going on, and understanding even this. You know how was she held for this aggravator? Well, it makes sense to a point, because you were entrusted with protecting this area, just like a cop. You know if you violate trust of the civil society, you breached your contract. But this is I mean everything you've said about this is just a horrible chain of events of just one bad decision destroyed so many lives, and I keep going back to that.
Speaker 3:And that's exactly right. In 2012, it was reported that in her state case alone she owed $44,545,879.01 to 1,114 listed victims to be compensated and, according to the court records, her restitution that had been held at that point in 2012, her restitution account was up to $3,089 after all that time. So at that rate it would take her 49,492 more years to pay her state restitution alone. And remember, in her federal case she still owed that 14.6 million on top of the figure I just gave you.
Speaker 2:So what was the Powerball jackpot this week? I know?
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, right. So she's in so deep she'll never get out. And then for her state case, because now she had that prolonged sentence of probation and all the community service hours she had to do, in 2018, her probation had to be extended to pay her restitution. 2018, her probation had to be extended to pay her restitution. So in 2018, when she came in after 10 years of being on probation and making restitution, payments amount between 50 and 150, depending on where you're looking at in that term, because it's based on her ability to pay. So part of that she was incarcerated. Part of that was right after she got out.
Speaker 3:At that point it was converted to an unsupervised probation to avoid the additional fees for probation, so that way, more of the money could be put towards the restitution.
Speaker 3:At that point, when she was owing $42 million, she was cleaning for an Airbnb, had some personal training clients and she also watched her grandchildren for free.
Speaker 3:And when they went through the sentencing hearing at that point because every time you have a violation of probation or extending probation or anything of that nature, you go through another sentencing hearing. And so at that probation review hearing, judge Bain was the judge on that and he mentioned that she was giving free services to watch her grandkids, and so he stated in his ruling that, at the end of the day, the legal requirement trumps any moral requirement to family. Does this mean Ms Barton may end up spending the rest of her life paying restitution? Yes, in all likelihood it means Ms Barton is going to spend the rest of her life paying restitution, and so she was ordered to get a 40-hour-per-week job as a condition of her probation, and at that point the interest on her debt was increasing faster than she could pay it. So her restitution total at that point was $42.5 million instead of $42 million, because the interest was going up faster than her payments.
Speaker 2:And you want to feel bad. But at the same time you committed the act and not even did you, just commit the act and found it. You admitted you did it. So no again, you didn't mean to do this, you didn't mean it to get out of hand like it did. I don't think we've got the full story, I just things don't add up. But I agree, like you said, like you have enough to take it to trial and meet the legal requirements to hold the person accountable. You're not going to get the whole story, you know, and in this case it's not even like a normal crime where you have he said, she said the truth, truth, you just have her and the truth, and even if she thinks that's the truth, it just doesn't add up.
Speaker 2:But in my view, I feel and I've said this a couple of times, I'm going to go back I feel bad for the community destroyed. I feel bad for the animals that are destroyed. I think for a law enforcement officer, sometimes that's the stuff that hits you the most is not just the people, but it is the community and the animals and the things you see, because you, it's your home, but then her own family, like the decision she made a, whatever happened to her, her husband, like if they're still together. If not, like I hope he got help and treatment, like if somebody that worked in substance use disorders. I know that that can be extremely taxing on the family and I'm sure that put a toll on her. Maybe she did do this just because of anger and hurt, but the damage is done to family and generational wealth that they're never going to be able to accumulate now for her kids or grandkids, her kids that are going to have to deal with that.
Speaker 2:Because as much as we try to say we've got to be a forgiving society, we are not. And people will mock and point and everything, and then not. And people will mock and point and everything and then kind of the last thing that comes out to me is she's got to live with that the rest of her life. And if there's anything to take away from this story which there's really not, but it does come down to, the one thing in my eyes is you gotta think and just really think of the repercussions of everything that's going to happen. Like when we talk about law enforcement I'm sure as prosecutors it's the same way you think of every facet of an accident you're about to do, if it's a court case, if it's a raid you're going to do, even a car stop. Accidents happen, but you've got to think before you act Because, as I said at the beginning, one person can change the world. Don't be that one person in this situation, like I don't know it's horrible, but this is super fun.
Speaker 2:Like I really like this. Like, bring me a case, we're going to talk about it and see if I can go why so on the civil side?
Speaker 3:because of course you know it can't just stop here Of Of course not.
Speaker 3:In November of 2008, there was a suit from several insurance companies against the US Forest Service for $7 million.
Speaker 3:So now, if you follow, she had been an employee of the Forest Service. Now the insurance companies who had to pay out these claims for people's houses and things are suing the Forest Service. And why they were doing that was because they were saying she was working for the Forest Service. Therefore it's the Forest Service's fault that everything got burnt down. So in that case the chief US District Judge, judge Daniel, said that essentially they were claiming that Barton was acting as a Forest Service agent, was negligent in her duties and, as such, an agent responsible for the damages, and specifically they tried to have a person come in and testify that she was negligent in her methods to suppress the fire. But the judge found that when she started the fire she was not doing the work assigned to her. Obviously she was not doing something that was necessarily incident to that work or what was customary in the Forest Service's business. So at the time she started it, they were saying she was not an agent of the Forest Service.
Speaker 2:Not only outside the scope of your practice is what we would call it. But I'm pretty sure her job wasn't start massive firefight, massive forest fire. I'm pretty sure her job wasn't start massive firefight, uh, massive forest fire. I'm pretty sure she was not. I'm sure they didn't call and be like, hey, you know what, go and set that force on fire and see what happens yeah, that's gonna make fun fun day. I don't think you can hold them accountable right and you I'm.
Speaker 2:You see this in other situations where, like there were the people that were poisoning tylenol, they went back and tried to sue tylenol and it was not. It had nothing to do until you got to the store, but they were like, well, it's tylenol's fault that somehow people got right, and that's kind of what this was the insurance company.
Speaker 3:Of course they can't sue her because she doesn't have a pot to pee in, so they go after the forest Service. And after the judge said that she wasn't acting like in the customary Forest Service business, he went on to say that Barton violated the fire ban and contravened the established policy of the Forest Service when she lit the letter or the grass in the campfire ring on fire, and thus she acted outside the scope of her employment ring on fire, and thus she acted outside the scope of her employment. And then the court further found that she returned to her scope of employment when she returned to the area, saw the fire and began to attempt to contain it. But in addressing her negligence in stopping the fire, the judge found that the expert's testimony was speculative as there was not a recognized scientific methodology on how she should have stopped the fire. And he wrote I find that plaintiffs have failed to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Barton could have suppressed or contained the fire by herself. So it's just like you said, at the end of the day they didn't get their money out of the Forest Service. And there again, a whole lot of money on lawyers and court time service. And there again, a whole lot of money on lawyers and court time. And it makes you wonder sometimes, like why do we have the system set up the way that we do? And you know, we said a long time ago we weren't going to have debtors prison. But is she in a debtors prison? Well, in a way, kind of like, yeah, she's going to be trapped by this debt until the day that she dies.
Speaker 3:But then on the flip side, like you said, you look at the community and people lost their homes, their animals. There were stories like in the sentencing hearing went on forever with people because every victim has a right to address the court and you're talking about over a thousand people have the right to come in and address the court. And there were so many letters that Judge Colt had to read through. People who had retired, lost everything and now had to go back to work because now they had no home, no, nothing. And now had to go back to work because they had no way to support themselves now that their house was gone.
Speaker 3:And like story after story about people like with their horses and like knowing the fire was coming. They couldn't save them. They just would open up the barn or open up the pasture and just hoped for the best that they could run and try to save themselves, because they knew there was no way to move them, and without having all the reverse 911 technology and all of that the rest of us like, even though you might not have been personally impacted by the fire, there were days that again it had its own weather system and things would change constantly. You could be sitting at home and all of a sudden the entire valley would fill up with smoke so much you could not see anything and you would be worried. Like what if it shifted direction? Like it went 19 miles in a day, this direction? What if something shifted and it's coming towards us? Are we going to even know in time to get out?
Speaker 2:so, and I think somebody like that with what she did, the job she had prior and stuff. Like a really good way to give back is to go teach it, talk at schools, elementary schools, middle schools and stuff and talk about like, look, I made this bad, this is how impactful it would be. And the reason I say that is because no offense to this person, but there's still people that are causing massive forest fires, doing dumb shit, and it's like we're not learning from these mistakes. And partially it's because I'd never heard of this case. I knew nothing about this. So how you know, we're not using these cases as examples of why you have to be vigilant or why we have to pay more attention. So allowing her to serve some of her community service, probation, traveling the US, talking to schools and kids and even forced conservation officers and stuff. Like, hey, your job is to protect and serve. Like, don't start a fire. Hey, your job is to protect and serve.
Speaker 3:Like don't start a fire Right. And ultimately, too, for her. She lives in hiding. Now. Her address is hidden, like all of the court records, everything else. You cannot find her in any of it and one of the articles I read. Somebody tried to track her down and went to a house that they thought that she might be living at and left a note saying they wanted to interview her, and the reporter said that they got a call from somebody claiming to be John that said she has no comment and she doesn't want to be contacted about it. Whether they reconciled or not I don't know If that was really him or not, don't know but it's sad to think that, in addition to everything else, like you said, all of these people's lives are ruined hers, her husband's, her kids. And, like you said, it's not just that she's finished her sentence or that she just owes more money now.
Speaker 2:She's basically on the run from everyone in the community because she doesn't know who might still be so angry that they could cause her harm yeah, I think in the end that's like you hear that with a lot of criminal offenders, when they get out especially victim crimes is that they have to go into hiding and stuff, and sometimes so do their families, because even though our criminal justice system is to hold people accountable, people seem to think that it's okay to take it into their own hands after they did their sins, and to me, one of the most un-american things to do is to go after somebody after they've. Now I understand, like, especially when you have victim crimes and people have been hurt, like you're angry, you're pissed off, but either you believe in the system and forgiveness or you don't. You can't have it both ways and I really do feel bad for families. Uh, that, and and sometimes offenders that have to go into hiding after that change their names and everything else, because you continue have to look over your back the rest of your lives.
Speaker 2:Um, I had a, an individual I interviewed once who would get who'd been acquitted of a murder that he later admitted to, and he said you know, I look over my shoulder all the time because I'm afraid that family's going to come back for me. He said I deserve it, but it doesn't mean that I don't fear it and I don't regret what I did. So understand this person didn't mean to do the damage. They did, it was an accident that happened. Not an accident. It was an incident that happened. She didn't mean to do the damage they did.
Speaker 3:It was an accident that happened, not an accident it was an incident that happened.
Speaker 2:She didn't accidentally, didn't mean the damage. When have they paid their debt to society? And I think that's a bigger ethical issue that, from the history of us learning to walk on two legs to this day, we, we can't answer.
Speaker 3:I agree with that. It was fun talking about this case.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm enjoying this. We'll have to try another one of these.
Speaker 3:Sounds good.
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