Colorado’s Supreme Court has denied an emergency petition asking for a special prosecutor to replace the Denver District Attorney’s office in the case of Clarence Moses-EL.

Moses-EL spent 28 years in state prison for a 1987 rape in Denver’s Five Points neighborhood that he has said he didn’t commit. The only evidence against him was that the victim said his identity came to her in a dream – after she had named three other men as her possible attackers. The first man she named, LC Jackson, since has confessed to the assault.

Partly because of an error made by district attorneys, Denver police threw all the DNA evidence in the case in a dumpster.

A Denver district judge vacated Moses-EL’s conviction last December. Despite a lack of evidence against Moses-EL – and Jackson’s sworn confession in court – DA Mitch Morrissey’s office said last winter it will re-prosecute the case. The trial is slated to begin next month.

Moses-EL’s legal team on Thursday filed an emergency petition with the state Supreme Court seeking to oust the DA’s office from the case on grounds that Morrissey has withheld key evidence and twisted the fact to lawmakers and members of the news media. The DA has denied those allegations.

On Friday, the state’s highest court denied the emergency petition.

Moses-EL’s two-week trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 7th – two months before Morrissey will leave office.

Photo by Allen Tian.