CRIPPLE CREEK – The judge presiding over the Patrick Frazee case agreed to release search warrants in the case Monday morning.
Judge Scott Sells said much of the information had already been disclosed in Frazee’s preliminary hearing almost two weeks ago.
Sells said the documents will not be released Monday, but they will likely be released later this week due to the need to redact personal information in the documents.
Clarification on the search warrants. The search warrants with returns refer to police filing paperwork after the search. Essentially, they explain what they searched & what they found. @KOAA #KelseyBerreth #PatrickFrazee #KrystalKenney
— Sam Kraemer (@SamKraemerTV) March 4, 2019
Frazee’s attorneys objected to the release of the documents, citing a need for a fair trial and the small pool of potential jurors in Teller County. However, Sells disagreed, saying much of the information had already been released in the preliminary hearing.
While Sells allowed the release of 22 of the 28 warrants, he did not allow the exhibits displayed at the preliminary hearing to be made public. Both the prosecution and defense agreed that they did not want those released ahead of the trial.
The prosecution argued that it did not want the evidence shown to anyone else other than potential jurors before a trial. The defense argued that it didn’t want evidence revealed in a way that could be out of context, which could impact Frazee’s right to a fair trial.
In addition to those decisions, the state and defense agreed to move a decision about consumptive evidence testing until after Frazee’s arraignment.
Consumptive testing involves evidence that can only be tested one time, likely due to the size of the evidence or the material in question.
That piece of evidence remains unknown following Monday’s hearing.
Frazee’s arraignment is now scheduled for Friday, April 5 at 8:30 a.m., when he could enter a plea.
