Former Cape County prosecutor Swingle returns to Missouri

Morley Swingle missed the excitement of trying big cases.

The former Cape Girardeau County prosecuting attorney will be a prosecutor in the St. Louis circuit prosecuting attorney’s office beginning Wednesday.

In this file photo, prosecuting attorney Morley Swingle presents photo evidence during Clay Waller's preliminary hearing Wednesday morning, July 25, 2012, at the Jackson Courthouse.Laura Simon

Swingle had lived in Colorado since 2013 and was a partner at a Parker, Colorado, law firm.

He was the only criminal-defense lawyer in the practice, with more than 100 cases, but most of the cases were misdemeanors.

He said he realized he wanted to prosecute murders and other serious crimes again.

“The next jury trial in Colorado was going to be a stoplight violation,” Swingle said.

Swingle will have no shortage of work in St. Louis. The city had 188 murders in 2015, and he will join the armed-offender unit.

He said he will have a stack of files waiting on his desk on his first day.

“It’s job security,” Swingle said.

He said he expects he will have no trouble stepping into his former role, a job he did for 35 years — 25 in Cape Girardeau.

In that time, he tried 79 homicide cases and more than 140 jury cases.

Swingle said he is looking forward to regaining the camaraderie of being a part of a prosecuting attorney’s office. He will be part of a staff of 60 lawyers and 150 employees total.

He said he felt isolated as the only criminal defense attorney at his firm in Colorado.

“I missed Missouri,” Swingle said. “I never felt completely at home in Colorado. The minute I set foot in St. Louis I felt like I was home.”

This move coincides with Swingle’s divorce from Lane Thomasson.

That relationship began in 2009 in Cape Girardeau, when Thomasson was the victim in a case Swingle — who was married at the time — was prosecuting.

At the time, some questioned the professional ethics of the relationship, but Swingle has said it began only after his work on the case was finished.

He was not disciplined by the Missouri Bar.

“I went to Colorado for love, but I’m single again and back in Missouri,” Swingle said.

bkleine@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3644

Pertinent address:

1114 Market St., St. Louis, Mo.