A federal judge directed a defendant to revise his allegations on Wednesday to more precisely state what two Denver officers and the city itself allegedly did to violate his constitutional rights by facilitating his prosecution for murder until prosecutors dropped the charges.
Stephan Long faced two counts of murder after he fatally shot two men in a road rage encounter in June 2023. Although Long asserted that he acted in self-defense — and that it was clearly self-defense at the time — the Denver District Attorney’s Office did not fully dismiss the charges for more than a year.
Because prosecutors enjoy broad immunity from civil liability for their actions, Long sued Detective Adam Lucero and Officer Daniel Meadows for facilitating his arrest and prosecution. He pointed to a probable cause statement drafted soon after his arrest that omitted key information that would have allegedly placed murder charges “completely outside the realm of reality.”…