FBI Honors Sturm Alumna as Denverās Top Prosecutor
Two-and-a-half years out of law school, Kelley Dziedzic (JD ā11) was doing the work typical of any new face in the Arapahoe County District Attorneyās office. She spent her days in the county courtroom, prosecuting misdemeanors and æģ»īappIs.
And then the email came.
It was an open invitation from her boss, in search of someone sharp, talented and passionate to join the Special Victims Unit.
āItās the unit that draws the worst of the worst,ā says Dziedzic, a graduate of the Often, SVU handles sex crimes and crimes against children. āIt sets that fire in your stomach that that person needs to be stopped,ā she remembers thinking. āAnd I'd love to be the person that does that.ā
With hindsight, applying seems like a natural decision. After all, Dziedzicās career has been full of triumphs. Currently the senior deputy district attorney in Arapahoe County, she was recently āa nod to her 2017 conviction of whose 400-year prison sentence for human trafficking is thought to be the longest in U.S. history.
But in 2014, Dziedzic knew she only had about half the experience needed for the SVU job. Even so, she applied.
āThrough either some stroke of genius or madness, [my boss] took someone into the unit who had, give or take, two years of experience,ā Dziedzic says. āI feel really fortunate because the one thing it did allow me to do was learn from people who I felt and still feel were the absolute best of the best. Itās hard to pick up bad habits if the people youāre surrounded by are the rock stars of prosecution.ā
In some ways, the SVU post was the next logical step in Dziedzicās career. During law school, she interned with the Arapahoe County DA, an opportunity that progressed into a part-time job during her final year at Sturm. The day she passed the bar exam was the day she returned with a full-time position.
But in other ways, her promotion seemed unlikely. Dziedzic admits she never felt like someone who was born to be a lawyer, let alone an SVU prosecutor.
Growing up in a small town outside of Knoxville, Dziedzic earned undergraduate degrees in history and political science from the University of Tennessee. And then the recession hit.
The job market didnāt look promising and she saw law school as a way both to bide her time and turn her undergraduate lemons into āmarginally-profitable lemonade.ā She asked her uncle, Sturm graduate Howard Kenison (JD ā72), for advice.
āOne of things he told me was the practice of law is very local,ā Dziedzic recalls, āso consider strongly the community you want to live in when choosing your law school.ā
There was no comparison to Denver, Dziedzic says. Access to outdoor activity was surpassed only by access to a number of major district attorneyās offices where she could gain experience. And she still feels supported by the on-campus community she found with her classmates and professors.
āWhen youāve put that much time and paid a not-insignificant amount of money to get that degree, to be able then to have had a school that gave you the ability to build those relationships and parlay it into ā¦ hitting the ground running, itās actually really rare,ā she says.
Rare, too, was Dziedzicās work on the Franklin case, prosecuting a man who used drugs and violence to control the children he forced into a sex trafficking ring. In many similar cases, the victims often recant or recoil from the public eye ā forget appearing before a judge and jury.
But Dziedzic spent years developing relationships with the victims, building their trust. As a result, eight of nine victims took the stand and testified against Franklin.
who promoted Dziedzic to the SVU, despite her relative lack of experience, couldnāt be prouder. She credits Dziedzic with an ability to connect with people, victims in particular. And beneath Dziedzicās raw talent and work ethic, Joseph says she saw a willingness to learn and a drive to improve.
āItās very easy to be motivated by ātelevisionās closing arguments,āā Joseph says, referencing the popularity of courtroom dramas like āLaw & Order.ā āThey are really fun, passionate moments and are fun to watch. But thatās not real life. Real life is that youāre so passionate about something that youāre going to work really hard, and thatās something that Kelley was always really good at. It means understanding facts and people and the law and using all of those things in a skilled way in order to be an advocate.ā
For Dziedzic, advocacy is what the FBI honor is all about.
āIt could have gone to people who prosecuted a series of armed robberies at banks or serious economic crime or maybe took down a big international drug syndicate,ā she says of the award. āThe fact that it was recognized for work in human trafficking I think is really special.
āFor a really long time, I think there was this attitude of ācriminal justice is a matter of resources, so do we spend our resources on this type of victim?āā she adds. āAnd for there now to be that recognition that these are cases that are so worth our time, attention and resources, thatās a real turning point.ā