IAN D. W. SUTHERLAND
Ian D. W. Sutherland has been an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney for Cape Girardeau County since the 19th of September, 1988. He holds the position of First Assistant.
Sutherland was born in East Tennessee of proud Scottish stock where he grew up in a small town nestled in the foothills of the Great Smokey Mountains in the Tennessee Valley. He entered the US Army upon graduation from high school and joined the illustrious 82nd Airborne Division. After participating in Exercise Longhorn in Texas, he was accepted in the first US Army Unconventional Warfare Unit, the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne). He attended college in his hometown after leaving the Army and upon graduation entered Tulane University in New Orleans where he received a Masters of Science in Zoology and Physiology.
He reentered the Army and was assigned to the 1st Battalion (Reinforced), 3rd Infantry (The Old Guard) in Washington, DC where he participated in the State Funerals for John F. Kennedy and Douglas MacArthur. He returned to the US Army Special Forces and soon afterwards joined the 5th Special Forces Group in the Republic of Vietnam. Shortly after returning to the United States from that assignment, he was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency and spent two years in Vietnam with their programs. Near the end of American involvement in the war he conducted the last US Prisoner of War recovery operation in South Vietnam while assigned to the Military Assistance and Advisory Command–Vietnam, Studies and Observation Group. With a two-year tour in the American Embassy in Teheran, Iran, behind him, he retired from the US Army in 1979 as a Lieutenant Colonel.
His first taste of civilian life was at the JFK School of Government, Harvard University, where he received a Masters of Public Administration. He was fortunate to have a close association with Governor Michael Dukakis and other equally impressive members of the faculty while at Harvard. After a brief stint in Washington, DC with the US Coast Guard, Ian moved to Missouri where he attended the School of Law, University of Missouri in Columbia.
Ian has almost exclusively practiced criminal law since becoming licensed in the State of Missouri. He has more than 100 jury trials, innumerable bench trials, preliminary hearings, motion hearings and other court proceedings to his credit. He has functioned as a Special Prosecuting Attorney in many counties of Southeast Missouri and is well-known to the trial courts of the area.
Ian wrote The US Army Special Forces, 1952 – 1982, published in 1990. The book has been acclaimed by many, including General Colin Powell, as the most authoritative work on the subject. Presently, the work is being updated for CD-ROM format and will not only include the past twenty years but also will greatly expand the material on the activities of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in World War II. Ian is the author of a historical novel entitled Brightlight, due to be published in the Spring of 2001. The novel relates his experiences in Vietnam with the focus being the US Prisoner of War recovery operation he conducted there near the end of the war. When the update project of the US Army Special Forces is completed, he will begin a book relating the activities of the Office of Strategic Services, Operational Groups. He plans to visit the areas where these units operated in Southern France and Northern Italy with the Commanding General of the US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and Schools at Fort Bragg, North Carolina in the coming years.
Ian says of his years as a prosecutor: "The sense of purpose, the refusal to compromise principle, and the strict adherence to the highest ethical standards of Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle has set an example for me over the years. Working in this type of environment with this type of person has been a great professional experience and personal pleasure."