{"id":28688,"date":"2024-03-14T22:55:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T22:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sean-murray-named-new-district-attorney-for-6th-judicial-district\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T06:37:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:37:01","slug":"sean-murray-named-new-district-attorney-for-6th-judicial-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sean-murray-named-new-district-attorney-for-6th-judicial-district\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Murray named new District Attorney for 6th Judicial District"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Sean
Sean Murray will be the next District Attorney for the 6th Judicial District of Colorado. (Courtesy of Hans Christian Hollenbeck)<\/span>Hans Christian Hollenbeck<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis appointed Sean Murray as the new district attorney for the 6th Judicial District of Colorado on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The appointment comes after Christian Champagne stepped down from the position in February.<\/p>\n

Murray has served as the assistant district attorney for the 6th Judicial District since 2022.<\/p>\n

Previously, he was an appellate deputy district attorney in the 6th Judicial District from 2020 to 2022. Before that, he served as the deputy district attorney in the 6th Judicial District from 2017 to 2020.<\/p>\n

The 6th Judicial District attorney is the chief prosecutor for La Plata, Archuleta and San Juan counties. The position oversees 27 employees and a $3 million budget.<\/p>\n

In an interview Thursday, Polis said there were multiple candidates up for the position but he felt Murray\u2019s skill set was best fit to serve Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt that Sean Murray is the best candidate to help make Colorado safer and one of my top goals is making Colorado one of the 10 safest states,\u201d Polis said. \u201cWe need a strong chief prosecutor in Southwest Colorado, and I\u2019m confident that Sean Murray is the guy to help make the Durango area safer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polis cited Murray\u2019s ability to understand both sides of an argument, management capabilities and his vision for the office. His experience in Southwest Colorado is also a benefit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t sure what my chances were because Judge Norvell applied. And then the other applicant, Jason Eley, applied. So I was thinking, \u2018I\u2019m not sure what my odds are,\u2019\u201d Murray said. \u201cI\u2019m just really delighted to get the appointment and I\u2019m going to give everything I have to make sure that the DA\u2019s office delivers safety and fairness and justice in the 6th Judicial District.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murray said fentanyl, domestic violence, crimes involving firearms, sexual assault and addiction are some of the biggest issues affecting Southwest Colorado. This is based on crime trends in recent years, but he says the number of these crimes committed on a yearly basis are down.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt used to be pretty steady at 4,400 filings a year, and now we\u2019re down to 2,800. So, crime has dropped significantly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Murray started serving the 6th Judicial District in 2011 as a public defender before becoming the assistant district attorney for the 22nd Judicial District of Colorado overseeing Montezuma and Dolores counties.<\/p>\n

Murray\u2019s vision is to promote a safe community and to pursue excellence in trial and appellate work.<\/p>\n

One way he wants to do this is by using the DA\u2019s office\u2019s data dashboard, which is a platform used to look at case trends. He says using this tool enhances the fairness of the justice system.<\/p>\n

He also wants the DA\u2019s office to be victim-centered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a big one for us as well,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had two victim advocates who\u2019ve won the Victim Advocate of the Year award in the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murray officially took over the position Saturday.<\/p>\n

tbrown@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Jared Polis says Southwest Colorado has the right man at the helm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1078,493,168,950,28,475,1562],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-28688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-6th-judicial-district","tag-archuleta-county","tag-crime","tag-durango","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-colorado","tag-san-juan-county-colorado"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28688"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80498,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28688\/revisions\/80498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28688"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=28688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}