As a Gail force joins bench, lawyers tackle case chaos

ASPEN — A short-staffed district attorney’s office made for some courtroom confusion in Aspen on Monday. The upper valley has been without a designated prosecutor for weeks since the announcement of former Deputy District Attorney Gail Nichols’ appointment to a district court judgeship. And on the same day that Nichols donned the judge’s robes in a ceremony on the courthouse steps in Aspen, Deputy District Attorney Tony Hershey, who was brought in from the 9th Judicial Office in Glenwood Springs to fill in, repeatedly apologized to the court for procedural errors in several cases. An Indiana man who’d been extradited from Florida on allegations of burglary in Aspen had been held in the Pitkin County jail for weeks without being advised of charges, Hershey said. Matthew Thomas Hughes, 21, has been in jail since June 18. He had... [read full story]