Carrie Lynn Thompson retired from the Colorado State Public Defender’s Office in December 2014 and is currently a sole practitioner. Ms. Thompson was the Managing Deputy State Public Defender for the Colorado Springs Office of the Colorado State Public Defender’s Office from March 2006 through December 2014, managing and training a staff of 89 people. She began her public defender career in 1987 in the Arapahoe County Office where she practiced for almost eight years. She was then assigned to the Denver County Office for ten years where she served as Division Lead, supervising a division of felony lawyers, handling a felony caseload and coordinating the in-house training. Over her career, Ms. Thompson has lectured and provided training extensively on numerous topics in the field of criminal defense in Colorado and nationally, including a series of lectures on representing clients in high profile cases, entitled, “Representing the Monsters-Taking the Jurors from Fears to Tears.”
Ms. Thompson received the David F. Vela Award in 1997 for her extraordinary dedication to the ideals of the Colorado Public Defender System and she was named the Colorado State Public Defender Attorney of the Year in 2002. In 2012, she was recognized by the Colorado Women’s Bar Association Foundation, honoring the “Second Wave,” the second generation of women attorneys who continue to “raise the bar” after the first generation of women trailblazers. In 2022, she was the recipient of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar’s Jonathan Olom Award “for exceptional service and sacrifice made without regard for personal gain in the defense of the accused.” She has served on numerous local and state level criminal justice committees including the State Judicial Advisory Counsel and the State Jury Reform Committee and served as a member of the Community Corrections Board for El Paso and Teller Counties from 2006 through 2014. Ms. Thompson served as the president of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar in 2003-2004. After leaving the Public Defender’s Office, she served as the Legislative Policy Coordinator for the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar in 2016-2018. She most recently served as the lead lawyer in a double murder case that began as a capital case, was tried to a jury during the pandemic and was resolved by way of a favorable plea disposition after the jury hung 11-1 for acquittal.
