Colorado’s second-highest court on Thursday dismissed an incarcerated man’s defamation lawsuit against former Gov. Bill Ritter, who had urged voters not to heed “the baseless allegations of a convicted murderer” when making judicial retention decisions.

Denver jurors convicted Hal Hebert in 2003 of murdering his wife, Carol Hebert, two years prior. Ritter was the elected district attorney and one of the lead prosecutors was Kerri Lombardi, who is now the presiding judge of the Denver County Court.

In the lead-up to Lombardi’s retention election in 2022, Hebert, who maintains he was wrongly convicted, paid for a flyer in The Denver Post alleging Lombardi and other actors committed misconduct to secure his conviction. He suggested voters should not retain Lombardi in the election.

Shortly before Election Day, The Post published a commentary from Ritter responding to Hebert’s flyer. Ritter, who served as a one-term Democratic governor after his time in the district attorney’s office, defended the criminal proceedings in an article titled “Don’t let a convicted killer sway your vote on this judicial retention.”

“What I hope Denver voters do not consider are the baseless allegations of a convicted murderer written from his prison cell in the Colorado Department of Corrections. That would be its own grave injustice,” Ritter concluded.

Hebert then filed a defamation lawsuit against Ritter. He sought to recover the costs of his anti-Lombardi ad plus $17,000 for pain and suffering — or, in the alternative, an apology essay from Ritter in The Post.

Ritter moved to dismiss the claim under Colorado’s “anti-SLAPP” law, which stands for “strategic lawsuits against public participation.” The legislature enacted the law in 2019 to provide a mechanism to quickly dispose of litigation that implicates a person’s First Amendment rights — specifically, the rights to free speech and to petition the government. 

Last April, District Court Judge Andrew J. Luxen sided with Ritter. He noted numerous federal and state courts had rejected Hebert’s challenges to his conviction, so the fact that he was a “convicted murderer” was undisputed. 

Moreover, Ritter’s commentary “is clearly nonactionable as defamation because it is Defendant’s own opinion,” Luxen concluded.

Hebert appealed, arguing Luxen should not have taken notice of Hebert’s unsuccessful court challenges and maintaining Ritter’s statements could be proven false. A three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals disagreed.

“Hebert’s ‘evidence’ consists of documents he drafted and the bald assertions in his sworn complaint — characterized as ‘facts’ — that he is innocent and was wrongfully convicted,” wrote Judge Stephanie Dunn in the March 20 opinion. “But even assuming Hebert believes all of this, a jury did not, nor did countless courts. And even if Hebert believes that the prosecutors — particularly Judge Lombardi — engaged in unethical prosecutorial practices, an independent investigation found otherwise.”

Dunn was referencing a 2024 report from the Conviction Review Unit of the Denver District Attorney’s Office, which culminated in then-District Attorney Beth McCann declaring Hebert was properly convicted of murder.

“Hebert presented no competent evidence to support his subjective beliefs and unsubstantiated allegations,” Dunn concluded.

The case is Hebert v. Ritter.