Denver’s outgoing district attorney Beth McCann, who is leaving office after two terms, has made a lasting impression on the city. Many will remember her for a legacy of legal reforms, community safety initiatives and her steadfast commitment to justice. This Women’s History Month, she sat down with us for the Bucket List Community News podcast to reflect on her tenure, the challenges she has faced throughout her career and the path ahead for Denver’s criminal justice system.
Becoming Denver’s first female district attorney in 2016 was no small feat for McCann. Since then, she’s prosecuted criminal cases in the city to ensure the safety of Denverites. “I’m very proud of being the first female Denver district attorney,” she said. “I think it is a really important position for the city. And sometimes people don’t even know what the district attorney does!”
Throughout her career, McCann has been conscious of the workplace dynamics within her office, especially when it comes to work-life balance and mental health. She implemented policies that reflected it: paid maternity and paternity leave and a peer support program to address the emotional toll of working in the legal profession. “I think we operate in teams, and people are incredibly supportive of each other,” she said of the culture at her office.
After graduating from Georgetown in 1974, McCann attended law school at Wittenberg University. At the time, women made up less than 8% of the legal profession in the U.S. “There weren’t that many women in my law school class, and so we had to kind of band together and support each other. There were professors who did not want us in their classrooms. And they made that fairly obvious,” she said.
After graduating with her Juris Doctor degree, she was hired as a clerk for a federal judge. She was only the second female law clerk in the trial courts in Denver. “I felt like the weight of all womanhood was on my shoulders,” she said. From starting in law school to working as a trial attorney, she emphasized how important it was to have mutual support among women in the legal community. “We just persevered,” she said. “We all felt like it was important. It was something we wanted to do.”
One of the most complex aspects of McCann’s role as district attorney is the decision to prosecute police officers. She emphasized the need for accountability while recognizing the challenges law enforcement officers face. “Being a Denver police officer or police officer anywhere is a very tough job,” she said. “And it can be very difficult for an officer to know what he or she is confronting.”
Despite the difficulties, McCann stressed the importance of transparency and community involvement in these kinds of cases, even taking the case of former Officer Brandon Ramos, who shot into a crowd in LoDo in 2022, to a grand jury to allow community input.
Looking ahead to the upcoming district attorney race, McCann has a few key issues that she believes should be prioritized, including addressing the fentanyl crisis, reducing gun violence and reforming the juvenile justice system. She has already said she will support whoever the Democratic nominee is, but has endorsed John Walsh. She hopes the incoming district attorney will continue to build on the restorative justice and diversion programs she started, while also advocating for alternatives to traditional criminal justice approaches.
As McCann prepares for retirement, she’s looking forward to spending more time traveling, running and volunteering for causes close to her heart.
