County Attorney candidates field questions during live-streamed forum
Britzius, Buus and Hiller offered similar answers to a variety of questions; all three said they would bring in a special prosecutor if faced with a case like the 2018 shooting of Robbie Ramirez.
The selection process for Albany’s next County and Prosecuting Attorney is well underway, and the field remains where it began — at three potential candidates, Kurt Britzius, Baend Buus and Randy Hiller.
These three lawyers are vying for the vacancy left by former Prosecuting Attorney Peggy Trent’s resignation earlier this month.
The Albany County Democrats live-streamed a virtual forum Monday, introducing their county attorney candidates to the public, and giving those candidates an opportunity to field a variety of questions.
But a lay person would be hard-pressed to suss out meaningful differences between the candidates based on their answers, which were often similar if not explicitly in agreement.
Asked what they would do in the event of a legal dispute between county departments, all three cited the law, saying the departments would have to retain outside counsel. Asked about their relationship to, and attitude toward, legal assistants and interns, all three spoke highly of the assistants and interns they had worked with. Asked how they would handle conflicts of interests, all three said ethical concerns took primacy in the professional life of a lawyer.
All three candidates said that plea bargains were a crucial component of the criminal justice system, that removing a child from their home was a last resort but sometimes necessary, and that the elected county commission had the ultimate decision-making authority in disagreements with their appointed boards.
The only questions to solicit differing answers were those tied to the candidates’ previous legal experience. They each detailed a history of practicing both civil and criminal law, but all had most recently been engaged in criminal law. All three had little to no experience working with regulatory law.
Kurt Britzius is a partner in a private practice firm, also serving as a Circuit Court Magistrate for Albany County and a Municipal Court Magistrate for the city of Laramie. Britzius’ primary focus has been criminal law, though he has had limited experience with civil law through his private practice, including family and real estate law.
Baend Buus is an Assistant District Attorney in the Laramie County District Attorney’s Office. His position is that of High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Assistant District Attorney, which oversees felony drug prosecutions. In a previous position, also with the District Attorney’s Office, he oversaw misdemeanor charges. Buus said he actually spent more time in civil law, earlier in his career, than he has spent in criminal law since.
Randy Hiller was previously an attorney for the Wyoming Office of the Public Defender, where he was supervising attorney for Carbon and Albany County. For the first six years of his 28-year legal career, Hiller was in private practice, taking both criminal and civil cases, drafting contracts and helping with real estate transactions.
Despite the similarity of responses, some of the candidates’ convergent answers were notable for their convergence: while each candidate voiced support for the progressive programs established by Peggy Trent, all three apparently disagreed with the way Trent handled the legal fallout from a recent notorious incident.
Moderator and Albany County for Proper Policing board chair Eric Quallen asked the candidates, “How would you balance your dual role as county prosecutor, and the attorney defending the county, in civil litigation if confronted with instances of misconduct by law enforcement officers?”
The question is a thinly veiled reference to Trent’s decisions following the 2018 shooting of Robbie Ramirez by Albany County Sheriff’s Deputy Derek Colling. Trent convened a grand jury, which met behind closed doors and decided no charges should be brought against the deputy.
The decision to convene a grand jury was controversial given that the county attorney must both represent the county government (including the sheriff’s office) and determine when and if to bring criminal charges (in this case, against an employee of the sheriff’s office).
Trent’s decision was criticized by police accountability advocates, including ACoPP, and inspired the victim’s mother, Debra Hinkel, to sue the county, alleging in her lawsuit that Trent sought to protect county leadership and brought in biased expert witnesses.
Britzius, Buus and Hiller were unanimous in saying they would handle a similar case by bringing in a special prosecutor.
Britzius: “If you’re representing the county, and a county employee — a sheriff’s deputy or whomever it is — is looking at being criminally prosecuted for the same behavior that puts the county at risk, I do think there’s an inherent conflict there.”
Buus: “I don’t know how you can balance being someone’s attorney, and prosecuting that person. It doesn’t square. The rules don’t allow it. If you have to wonder about any amount of conflict, you have to remove yourself from the situation, you have to do it. Special prosecutors are there for a reason.”
Hiller: “If one of the deputies were to get in trouble, you can’t represent the deputy, you can’t represent the county in that situation because of the inherent conflict in it. I think it’s appropriate to hire independent counsel.”
The Albany County Democrats are scheduled to send their three candidates to the Albany County Commission Wednesday. Once the county commissioners have the party’s list of candidates, they have five days to select the next County and Prosecuting Attorney from among them.
The chosen candidate will serve out the remainder of Trent’s four-year term, which ends following the 2022 election cycle. If the candidate wishes to stay in office beyond the end of that term, he will have to win the county-wide election.
The two-hour forum can be viewed in full on the Albany County Democrats’ Facebook page.
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