An Aurora councilmember’s effort to recall 18th Judicial District Attorney Amy Padden ended Tuesday after no signatures were filed with the Secretary of State.

Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky launched a campaign to recall the local prosecutor in July after Padden offered a plea deal to a teenager who hit and killed a 24-year-old woman while driving 90 mph in a neighborhood.

To recall an elected county official like Padden, Jurinsky would have needed to submit a recall petition meeting a signature threshold of 25% of the total votes cast at the last preceding election for that office.

In the 2024 General Election, 303,500 ballots were cast for the 18th Judicial District Attorney position, so a recall petition would have required 75,875 valid signatures to go to the ballot, according to a spokesperson for the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office.

The Secretary of State’s Office confirmed Wednesday that proponents of the recall attempt did not submit any signatures in support of their efforts by the 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline.

Over the last several months, Jurinsky has invited people to come to the bar she owns, JJ’s Place, to sign the recall petition.

Jurinsky told The Denver Gazette she dropped the petition because she “felt like giving her a second chance.”

She indicated she had more than enough signatures to recall Padden, but she declined to share the petition with The Denver Gazette.

Padden looks forward to continuing her work as district attorney, she said in a statement Wednesday.

“While Arapahoe County overwhelmingly elected me to lead the 18th Judicial District in a new direction, the petition proponents sought to undermine the will of the voters,” Padden said in the statement. “By declining to sign the petition, voters recognized the important work that my office has been doing since January 2025 and plainly saw that this recall attempt was nothing more than partisan politics.”

Recall elections were added to the Colorado Constitution in 1912. Records show that there’s only been one district attorney recall election in modern history, the spokesperson said. The recall election, which took place in 2005 for the 9th Judicial District, was unsuccessful, with 80% of the votes in favor of retaining the district attorney.

Jurinsky started her push to recall Padden following the death of Kaitlyn Weaver, a 24-year-old who was hit and killed by a teenager in the country illegally.

The teenager was initially charged with vehicular homicide. 

At the time, then-District Attorney John Kellner promised to pursue the maximum two-year sentence in a youth corrections facility.

After the November election, the office went to Padden. The teen was then offered two years’ probation, 100 hours of community service, and a requirement to attend school and not break any laws. 

In a public safety committee meeting in July, Jurinsky called the decision “unacceptable,” announcing her campaign to recall Padden — who at that point had been in office for six months, making her eligible for recall.

“I do plan on honoring the life of Kaitlyn Weaver,” Jurinsky said at the time.

Padden refused to specifically talk about the Weaver case since the suspect is a juvenile, but she said her decision to give a plea deal to the suspect is in line with her beliefs about the juvenile justice system.

“We’re talking about kids, whose brains are not fully developed until they’re 25,” Padden previously told The Denver Gazette. “So, in the juvenile justice system, the way it works in Colorado is we look at really how we can connect this juvenile with resources to help them rehabilitate and make sure they don’t turn into an adult offender.”

In response to Jurinsky, Padden said the councilmember’s statements risk “undermining” relationships between the judicial district, the community and law enforcement. 

Padden took a negative spotlight again after an attempted kidnapper, Soloman Galligan, was arrested but found mentally incompetent to proceed to trial.

Padden became the punching bag for critics upset about the news, but told The Denver Gazette that a lot of misinformation about the case has led people to wrongly accuse her of something she can’t control.

State statute requires courts to drop charges in cases of incompetence, which Padden sees as a major flaw in the system in a state that lacks adequate mental health beds and funding, she said.

In July, Padden told The Denver Gazette that she was not worried about the recall effort, since the people of Arapahoe County “overwhelmingly” elected her.

“That’s a heavy burden and if that’s how she wants to spend her time, she can spend her time doing that,” Padden said.

Recall elections are also expensive, Padden said, especially since the petition would not align with the general election and would need to go to a special election, which would cost about $1.5 million.

“I don’t think that’s an effective use of taxpayer money,” Padden said. “I wish the councilwoman would collaborate with us to try to find some legislative solutions to the issues she’s raised rather than criticizing me for following state law that I’m required to follow.”