Judge Gary Donahoe

The background:

In the midst of a feud with the County Supervisors, Thomas and Sheriff Joe Arpaio began investigating alleged crimes by county officials related to the planning of the proposed $340 million court tower. Neither politician has said publicly what those crimes might be, but in December, Thomas obtained a grand jury subpoena for county records relating to the court tower.

The problem for Thomas is that his office had provided legal assistance to the county during the preparation of the court tower proposal. That fact spurred the county to file motions to kick Thomas off the investigation entirely and quash the grand jury subpoena.

In court proceedings that were unsealed Friday evening, Judge Gary Donahoe’s decision to thwart Thomas was revealed.

Donahoe agreed with the county in all matters and removed Thomas from the case, saying an “appearance of evil” exists in the conflict:

It strikes this Court that any rationally thinking person would likely conclude that it appears improper for adversaries in a court proceeding to have the same lawyer.

Andrew Thomas

The development is tough one for Thomas, who has been arguing for months that it’s not a conflict of interest for him to prosecute County Supervisor Don Stapley for alleged campaign finance form violations. That argument appears as thin as a paper straw at this point.

The court tower case is another high-profile loss for Thomas’ attempted heavy hitter, Lisa Aubuchon, who is also working on the Stapley criminal case. She was recently scolded by another judge for a Stapley matter. And Thomas also lost his bid to stop the county from setting up its own civil litigation department, which it swiped from his office following the Stapley indictment.

It appears that the courts hold all the trump cards — and Thomas loses more ground with each ruling.

—-

Below, you can read the county’s long news release about the latest ruling, followed by a joint statement from Arpaio and Thomas:
THOMAS DISQUALIFIED FROM CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION;

COURT RULES CONFLICTS HAVE “APPEARANCE OF EVIL”

· Andrew Thomas’ office disqualified from conducting court tower investigation

· Court says MCAO’s issuance of grand jury subpoena was improper and constituted conflict of interest with its client, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors

· Court states: “Board is entitled to obtain legal advice from lawyers who do not have a conflict of interest”

· Chairman Max Wilson calls on Thomas to change his behavior or “let someone else do the job.”

“This Court finds that the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has a conflict of interest that disqualifies it from conducting an investigation of its client on the very topic on which it gave legal advice to its client,” Donahoe wrote.

Donahoe relied on a 1972 Arizona Supreme Court opinion that noted knowledge held by one member of the county attorney’s office is tantamount to knowledge by all in the office and that “public confidence in our judicial system may be undermined if the appearance of evil, as well as the evil itself, is not avoided.”

In his ruling, Donahoe declared: “Here, the same appearance of evil is present. The Board will never believe that confidences about the court tower it shared with members of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office in executive sessions, other meetings and, perhaps in the sought-after correspondence and e-mails, will not be divulged to the deputy county attorneys involved in this investigation.”

Max Wilson

Board Chairman Max Wilson praised county officials. “The County Manager and his staff have handled this situation with professionalism, courage and fortitude,” he said. “I want to thank all the good and decent county employees who have worked for the benefit of the taxpayers while having knots in their stomachs, being subject to this type of harassment. These public servants are heroes.”

“I call on the county attorney to change his behavior. Be a lawyer without conflict or let someone else do the job,” Wilson said.

Smith said the ruling vindicated both the court tower project and the board’s recent actions in seeking alternative legal counsel. “The court tower project is the cleanest public works project I have seen in decades. Using it for this purpose is outrageous,” Smith said. “From the beginning of the criminal court tower project, Deputy County Attorneys had provided legal advice on every aspect of the project, every contract and procurement,” Smith said.

“The Court acted quickly and with wisdom in dealing with, in the words of the Judge, this appearance of evil,” Tom Irvine, the board’s private counsel, said of the ruling. “Any criticism of the Superior Court is just another misguided diversionary tactic that adds to the ‘appearance of evil.’”

“The board of supervisors has been supportive of both the sheriff and the county attorney in the past,” Supervisor Fulton Brock commented. “And yet, after years of demonstrated public support and responsible governance, the board and county administration have been met with politically motivated conflict.”

The conflict issue is the same point Maricopa County supervisors noted when they created a new general litigation department earlier this month and began an investigation into Thomas’ conflicts last year. On March 19, Judge Donald Daughton denied the County Attorney’s efforts to derail the board’s general litigation Department.

The supervisors had to fight in Court to make the ruling public. “The Board of Supervisors and our staff were muzzled by the grand jury secrecy statute throughout this terrible ordeal,” commented supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox. “When we learned of the ruling, we had to fight to make it public.”

BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE CONTEXT OF THE COURT’S RULING

Court Tower Project:
The board has authorized building a new criminal courthouse in downtown Phoenix to deal with the ever increasing criminal case load. “Maricopa County set aside money during the good times in order to be able to build this important public safety facility without raising taxes,” Smith said.

Grand Jury Subpoena Was Seven Days After Board Commenced Investigation into Thomas:
On Dec. 12, the county attorney’s office served a grand jury subpoena on Maricopa County officials seeking all records related to the court tower. The now defunct subpoena was served seven days after the Board of Supervisors voted, on Dec. 5, to inquire into any ethical conflicts that County Attorney Andrew Thomas and his office might have with their own clients.

Motion to Quash and Motion to Make Public the Ruling re the Grand Jury Subpoena:
Private lawyers for Maricopa County then moved to quash the subpoena and to disqualify the County Attorney from any such investigation. Since grand jury proceedings in Arizona are secret, the investigation, the subpoena and the motion to quash were all under seal and known only to the lawyers and parties involved. The ruling became public last Friday at 5 p.m. Also attached is Judge Donahoe’s March 23 Ruling and Order which lifted the veil of grand jury secrecy.

Court Tower Project Designed to Improve Public Safety and Avoid a Tax Increase:
Recently, Gov. Jan Brewer called for the State to act more like counties in saving up for big projects. “If we use the money for the criminal court tower to cut our budget less this year, we will have to cut our budget more next year and raise taxes when we run out of criminal courtrooms,” Smith remarked. “The Board is committed to a structurally balanced budget and to not taking actions that will harm public safety and cause future tax increases,” Smith stated.

End County news release — now for the Thomas and Arpaio release:

March 27, 2009

Joint statement:

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas: Grand Jury investigation of $340,000,000 Court Tower thwarted

“We are very concerned that the Superior Court, by disregarding the rulings of higher courts, has blocked an important grand-jury investigation of itself and its own employees. This is surely a conflict of interest by the court itself if there ever was one. This ruling has been appealed to the same higher courts that have already upheld such investigations and prosecutions.

Important questions have arisen regarding the funding and contracts for the new $340 million-dollar court tower. This ruling suggests county and court officials believe they don’t have to answer these questions. We believe they should and the public has a right to know.”

Sheriff Arpaio adds, “I want the taxpayers of Maricopa County to know that these unjust actions against the County Attorney will not deter the Sheriff’s Office investigation and we will move forward with a vigorous investigation of the court tower as well as our other corruption cases.”

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A Maricopa County Superior Court judge has disqualified County Attorney Andrew Thomas from an ongoing grand-jury criminal investigation into a $340 million county project because of a conflict of interest.

Presiding Criminal Court Judge Gary Donahoe removed Thomas from the case because the court-tower project under investigation by the grand jury is one that the County Attorney’s Office has provided legal advice on, according to court documents unsealed on Friday. Donahoe filed the ruling on Feb. 9.

Thomas has appealed the decision to the Arizona Court of Appeals.

Donahoe also denied requests from Thomas’ office to have an out-of-county judge rule on the matter and to remove from the case a private attorney retained by the county. The ruling also said that if Thomas wished to move the case forward, he would have to appoint a special prosecutor.

Thomas said the grand jury had met for a few months.

Grand juries are groups of citizens who review evidence and decide whether or not indictments should be issued. But grand jury matters are secret.

However, the Board of Supervisors and its legal team fought to get the records unsealed. The judge conceded Friday, saying that none of the reasons for secrecy applied because Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office had already told the media an investigation on the court tower was under way.

“It strikes this court that any rationally thinking person would likely conclude that it appears improper for adversaries in a court proceeding to have the same lawyer,” Donahoe wrote.

But Thomas claimed that Donahoe was misinterpreting the law to the benefit of the court.

“The sheriff and I are very concerned by the decision because it ignores clear rulings from higher courts and suggests that the superior court can decide whether or not it’s above the law,” he said. “If there’s any conflict in this, is it not in a judge ruling that he should not be subject to criminal investigation as well as the other court officials?”

The judge’s ruling appears to agree with the board’s assertion that Thomas cannot investigate his own client - the board - after his office provided it legal advice. In the wake of a criminal investigation of Supervisor Don Stapley, the board essentially fired Thomas as its chief legal counsel and formed its own legal department, saying Thomas has too many conflicts.

“Thomas is saying to his clients: You can’t fire me,” said Wade Swanson, director of the board’s new civil-litigation office. “The judge says the same thing that the board’s been saying for weeks, if not months, which is that the board is entitled to obtain legal advice from lawyers who do not have a conflict of interest.”

Thomas also has filed a lawsuit against the creation of that litigation office.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard agreed with Donahoe’s ruling.

“It’s black-letter law that conflicts of interest matter, especially for public prosecutors, both in the public perception and in the ability to do the job,” Goddard said. “And if there’s a conflict, you’ve got to step aside.”

He added, “You can’t use information that was gathered as part of your normal representation of a client in aid of a criminal prosecution.”

Goddard also is under investigation by Thomas and Arpaio’s offices for his handling of a prosecution of former state Treasurer David Peterson.

“The appearance is that they’re investigating everyone who disagrees with them,” Goddard said. “Is it just coincidental that he’s got a fight with the court on about 10 different items?”

The proposed court tower has been a bone of contention among county elected officials during the current financial crisis. The county is facing budget cuts and layoffs, but the board is spending $340 million to build a 16-story criminal court tower in downtown Phoenix, which officials say is needed to handle ever-increasing caseloads.

Arpaio and Thomas have both said the board should use the project’s money to float the county through tough times. The investigation involves the tower’s “funding and contracts,” according to a news release.

Arpaio, meanwhile, has submitted a records request asking for documents related to the project. On Dec. 12, Thomas served a grand-jury subpoena on Maricopa County officials seeking all records related to the court tower.

Thomas was particularly adamant about seeking information about the role of Tom Irvine in the court-tower project, including how much he has been paid and the circumstances of his hire. Irvine is the private attorney hired by the county.

“Those are the questions I’d like to ask him, and he won’t answer,” Thomas said.

Irvine is the attorney whose firm Thomas sought to have removed from the case.

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So many investigations of arch enemies to conduct, so few resources with which to conduct them.

At a time when every government agency is having to cut programs and make do, Republic reporter Yvonne Wingett is reporting that Arpaio is sending his intrepid investigators into county government, asking for all emails, calendars and phone records for 36 county employees - back to the beginning of time, presumably.

County officials are saying that it’ll cost tens of thousands of dollars to comply with Arpaio’s open-ended request. But then cost is apparently no object because you and I are picking up the tab.

According to Wingett, Arpaio appears to be after county folks with whom he has had recent run-ins, including all five supervisors and their chiefs of staff.

Meanwhile, Andy Thomas continues his quest to waste our money, having filed suit last month against the Board of Supervisors, challenging their authority to bypass him and hire outside attorneys to advise them on civil matters.

While I understand Thomas’ desire to protect his turf, he did bring down a 118-count felony indictment against Supervisor Don Stapley for omissions on his financial-disclosure forms. Did he really expect Stapley et al to rely on him for legal advice?

Meanwhile, out here in the real world, every public agency in town is rifling yesterday’s pants pockets and looking under the sofa for spare change to fund vital programs. It’s nice to see that Sheriff Joe and Sidekick Andy are not hurting for cash.

http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/LaurieRoberts/45470

“I didn’t really want to get involved in it because it was a nasty deal,” says Stapley, Maricopa County supervisor. “The developer was threatening to go ahead and develop it [and] local groups were trying to figure out how to buy it.”

However, after visiting the site with his family one weekend and seeing the Native American relics and pristine environment for himself, he changed his mind. “I thought we ought to think of ways to purchase the land,” Stapley says.

Stapley worked to convince then-Governor Jane Hull, the other four county supervisors and Cave Creek leaders to pool money to purchase the land. He organized tours of the site for those who seemed unconvinced. In 2001, the three governments bought the land for $21 million and agreed to manage it together. The Spur Cross Ranch now is supervised by the Maricopa County Parks and Recreation Department, and its annual operating costs are paid by Cave Creek. “It’s the first time in the country that a town, a county and the state joint ventured in a preservation effort of this kind,” Stapley says.

Had Stapley never been involved in the deal, builders may have completed the resort by now. “There were times we all thought it may never happen,” says Bill Scalzo, parks and recreation director for the county. “[Stapley] wouldn’t give up. It’s something that really distinguishes him.”

Stapley’s ability to build the coalition to preserve the Spur Cross Ranch exhibited one of his strongest leadership qualities. “He’s very good at ‘tenting,’ bringing everybody in,” says Mary Rose Wilcox, the longest serving member on the Maricopa County board and the only Democrat. “When we’re dealing with issues, he’s always able to pull together people that can give us some history and advice.”

That talent has been put to use recently as Maricopa County has been struggling to meet the health care needs of its residents, to improve its transportation network and to cope with exponential residential growth. It also has helped him chair the National Association of Counties’ (NACo) Large Urban County Caucus (LUCC) for the last two and a half years. “He’s humble. He’s soft spoken but strong willed, and I think that’s really key given the nature of the elected officials who are his peers,” says Dalen Harris, NACo associate legislative director. “Don is always able to help members develop consensus on the issue that they can all support unanimously.”

Using his collaborative skills, Stapley helped create a special health care district for Maricopa County that will transfer the support of the county’s hospital and 11 clinics to an independent organization funded by property taxes. Approved by voters last November, the health system’s operation will transfer to the district in January. Additionally, Stapley played an integral role in crafting a 20-year transportation plan that voters will be asked to fund with sales taxes in November. Those and other achievements highlight Stapley’s leadership strengths and make him American City & County’s 2004 County Leader of the Year.

Restructuring health care

Stapley has a keen sense of the area’s history because his family has been a large part of it, particularly in Mesa, a city the Stapleys helped found in the late 1800s. “There’s been a tradition of service in my family that certainly affected me,” Stapley says. His great grandfather helped write the state constitution, his grandfather was a firefighter in Phoenix, and his father served on the county hospital board for 20 years.

To help prepare him to meet the challenges of providing health care, Stapley served on the board of directors for a local Lutheran hospital for 10 years. The estimated 500,000 undocumented Mexican workers living in Maricopa County, stresses its health system. The county estimates it spent $80 million on uncompensated health care for indigents last year. “We spend about 60 to 70 percent of our time on health care,” says Fulton Brock, a fellow county supervisor.

Part of the problem stems from the hospital’s outdated design. It was built 50 years ago, when individual rooms were rare. “Most of the rooms are wards [which] does not attract today’s middle class,” Brock says. “Our payer mix is imbalanced, and we don’t have [many] people who can pay their bills.”

Because the health care system was draining the county’s budget, the Board of Supervisors considered selling it. Stapley, who was board chair in 2002, formed a 10-member task force to study alternatives. “[The hospital] was competing for the same dollars to build courts and jails and do the prosecution and public defense work,” Stapley says. “Do you take care of the indigent poor from Mexico? Or do you take care of managing crime in the community?”

The task force recommended creating a special district that would be funded by property taxes and dedicated to the health system’s operation. Because Maricopa County is not a charter government, but rather an arm of the state government, the state legislature had to allow the county to put a 20-year property tax on the November 2003 ballot.

The measure was approved in the legislature, and in November, residents approved the tax and the special district. “The average voter understood that for this system to close down, it would directly affect them even though they had never been there,” Stapley says. “All the volume that we take care of at the county level would disperse into their hospitals and clinics in the suburbs.”

In 2005, the district will begin levying the property tax, which will generate $40 million in the first year and will rise with inflation. “The health care system was one that Maricopa County had to continually pump money into from its general spending budget,” says Jim Sawyer, executive director for the Phoenix-based Arizona Association of Counties. “Don set out along with other talented people to get to the bottom of what was going on, how it could be changed, how it could be more effective, and how it could be used better.”

The health care district’s board of directors will be elected in November and will have options for supporting itself that the county did not have, such as merging with other health care systems, competing for nursing talent and issuing bonds for infrastructure improvements. “The health care safety net in the county will still be in place to take care of the truly needy and indigent, yet it won’t be caught up in the politics of the state house,” Stapley says.

Calling on Congress

Stapley’s experience with Maricopa County’s health care system prepared him well for LUCC’s chairmanship. Last year, he was appointed by NACo president Karen Miller to lead the LUCC’s lobbying efforts. The group chose uncompensated health care as one of its top lobbying priorities in 2003. “Don is the perfect person to carry that issue,” says Patricia O’Bannon, vice chair of LUCC and Henrico County, Va., supervisor. “The unfunded medical care issues are important to counties specifically. In border states, the impacts are particularly hard on county hospitals.”

As LUCC chair, Stapley focused on educating the federal government on uncompensated care’s impact on counties. His committee met with Congress members, particularly Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Sen. McCain, who sponsored bills that will provide significant revenue to counties. For example, the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 provided a $10 billion increase in the federal medical assistance percentage, which will boost counties’ reimbursements for Medicaid and other health services for indigent residents.

Additionally, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 will provide $250 million from fiscal year 2005 to fiscal year 2008 for emergency health services for undocumented aliens and increases disproportionate share hospital allotments. “[Stapley has] raised the profile within our organization and our advocacy development and policy development regarding [uncompensated health care],” Harris says.

Stapley’s connections to Republicans in the White House and Congress have proven beneficial for NACo. He has been friends with Sen. McCain for 20 years, helping him on his first Congressional campaign. “He’s very close to [Kyl and McCain] and to the administration, which is very helpful to us when Congress and the White House are controlled by Republicans,” says Larry Naake, NACo executive director.

Stapley also worked this year with NACo President Karen Miller and the NACo Rural Action Caucus (RAC) to improve communication between the two groups and find common issues. “Don has been instrumental in helping to bring the Rural Action Caucus and the Large Urban County Caucus together to build that bridge to rural America,” says Miller, Boone County, Mo., commissioner. “He recognizes that it takes both in order to get anything through Congress.”

The steering committees for the two groups met for the first time in March to discuss transportation issues and the reauthorization of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21). “The transportation issues in Arizona and Iowa may be very different, but all in all, it’s a matter of how do you move people and goods from one place to another,” says Jane Halliburton, chair of the RAC and supervisor for Story County, Iowa. “The urban areas, the suburban areas and rural areas — we don’t have to look at it as a competition. We actually complement one another.”

Keeping it moving

Stapley also devoted time last year to craft a 20-year transportation plan for the Maricopa County region. Serving on the 22-member Transportation Policy Committee for the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG), Stapley represented the county’s interests in the region’s long-term plans. The region’s half-cent sales tax for transportation is set to expire next year, so the group decided how the region could best meet its growing transportation needs.

The previous tax was dedicated to building freeways, but because the county has grown considerably in the last 20 years, the group determined that freeways were not the only way to solve the county’s transportation needs. Some areas of the county wanted to expand public transit service, including Phoenix, which plans to build a 20-mile light rail system. The resulting plan would extend the half-cent sales tax for 20 more years. The tax will generate $9 billion in revenue, which will be divided among the county’s regions according to population.

The use of the tax to support light rail was a controversial issue during the plan’s construction. “There were some of us who weren’t thrilled with the idea of spending a lot of money on light rail, and I was one of them, because it doesn’t really serve any of the suburbs,” Stapley says. “With the support of my colleagues, I was able to take to the policy committee a plan that sets up a system of checks and balances over 20 years and requires independent audits of the transit component — indeed any of the projects.”

The first audit would occur in 2010, after Phoenix’s light rail has been built. If the system is not generating expected ridership and revenue or meeting service levels, the auditors could discontinue expanding the system and replace it with another form of transit or transportation. However, the audits will apply to all parts of the plan, including freeways. “It was a brilliant plan,” says F. Rockne Arnett, member of the Transportation Policy Committee and chair of the Citizens Transportation Oversight Committee. “It was a very fair and equitable plan, and it had the accountability measures.”

The state approved the plan and allowed the county to put it on the ballot this November. “It was a tough battle just to get it on the ballot,” Stapley says. “It will pass because it has such grassroots buy in, and that’s the key to success in politics: building a base.”

Serving with satisfaction

While Stapley was a catalyst for changes locally and nationally, he prefers to share the credit with others who also were involved. “He’s one of those leaders who has it right: they’re in it for the public service,” Sawyer says. “It’s easy to admire Don’s work because he’s a quiet, effective leader. He doesn’t draw a lot of attention to himself. He goes about doing the work that he knows is in the best interest of the people he serves.”

That leadership style is particularly effective in large Maricopa County and at NACo. “He brings people together,” Naake says. “It’s not a dynamic, outgoing sort of leadership, but rather a quiet leadership that gets things done.”

As Stapley enters this fall’s election unopposed for his fourth term, it stands to reason he will continue serving his community with steady persistence. “My family and I have been fortunate in our lives,” Stapley says. “We’ve received so much from other people and so much kind support that I feel obligated to give back to the community. At the end of the day, when they turn out the lights, I want to look back and say, ‘I can’t take money with me, but I can take a lot of satisfaction for helping people.’ There’s no better place to do that than county government.”

View the Original Article

He either can be attorney for the County Board of Supervisors, or he can act as a criminal prosecutor laboring to throw board members into prison. But he shouldn’t try to have it both ways.

Two sets of lawyers now have acted to remove Thomas from his duties. Lawyers representing the board are in court to remove Thomas as the board’s civil legal adviser. And lawyers for supervisor Don Stapley, who Thomas has indicted on 118 counts for failure to disclose business interests, seek to remove Thomas as Stapley’s prosecutor.

It is a ticklish, complex situation, deeply colored by a 1987 court decision against the late Gov. Evan Mecham’s attempt to remove the state attorney general as his legal counsel under similar circumstances.

Similar, but not the same. Prosecutors often transfer cases to other jurisdictions if there is even an appearance of conflict of interest. And the politically charged atmosphere in county government right now is fairly bubbling with conflict, both apparent and real.

Thomas is fighting with the county board over potentially severe budget cuts. He is fighting with the supervisors over a planned courthouse project. The Stapley indictments - which include over 50 felony counts on matters that almost never rise beyond misdemeanors - are not Thomas’ sole beef with the supervisors.

Thomas could help head off this looming, two-headed legal battle by giving up either his role of civil adviser to the supervisors, or by handing over the prosecution of Stapley to another jurisdiction.

View the Oirignal Article on Arizona Republic

Where the spokesman’s recollection is not flat wrong, it is disingenuous. The spokesman - writing, we presume, on behalf of his boss, Andrew Thomas - contends we “heaped praise” on state Attorney General Terry Goddard for prosecuting then-Treasurer David Petersen for the “exact same offense” that Thomas has used to indict county Supervisor Don Stapley on 118 counts. The spokesman is wrong. Goddard originally investigated Petersen on charges involving misuse of public funds, conflict of interest and theft, among other suspected crimes, including a failure to disclose his business activities outside the Treasurer’s Office. Petersen ultimately pleaded guilty to the most petty of all the charges: a failure to disclose his business activities, a misdemeanor offense. By contrast, Thomas has racked up 65 felony charges against Stapley for “offenses” that Thomas’ spokesman now concedes are comparable to the Petersen plea deal.

As to the favoritism charge: It is wrong. We invite the county attorney’s spokesman to read our editorial of Oct. 26, 2007. In it, we implore Thomas and Goddard to desist from using their police powers to punish political foes: “(B)oth officials have displayed a disturbingly ravenous taste for criminalizing politics,” we wrote.

Goddard once wrote an oped (Jan. 4, 2007), defending himself against our growing concerns about his political prosecutions. Now, as we see, it is the county attorney’s turn to complain.

View Original Article

To that, we suggest that Thomas see above. The historical record says otherwise.

The fact is, there is no rational argument we can see - other than raw political payback, that is - to justify Thomas’ shocking overreach regarding Supervisor Stapley and his sloppy forms.

The preposterous assault on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors by Thomas constitutes an abuse of office sufficiently egregious to warrant some sort of censure.

It is certainly serious enough that the supervisors are justified in retaining their own legal advisers, at least until Thomas comes to his senses and drops these outrageous criminal indictments against Stapley.

Thomas, abetted (as is so often the case) by county Sheriff Joe Arpaio, has usurped the power of the duly elected supervisors, whose legal best interests Thomas was elected, in part, to defend. Thomas has mocked that duty.

If county supervisors truly were filling out financial-disclosure forms improperly, it is incumbent upon their attorney - Thomas - to warn them of the consequences. An important part of this case may center on that issue: Did Thomas provide legal advice to supervisors in filling out their disclosure forms? If he did, then Thomas’ indictment of Stapley smacks of conflict of interest.

At the county offices, Thomas has generated a state of fear.

Clearly unable to trust their own attorney, the board has turned to private legal counsel, a move that has spawned yet another courtroom melodrama over whether Thomas can continue representing the board on civil legal matters at the same time he prosecutes and terrorizes them.

Former County Attorney Rick Romley believes the supervisors are within their rights to do so.

Like so many others, Romley is a former supporter of Thomas who has had his fill of the county attorney’s abuses of power.

He has signed on as a special adviser to the supervisors.

Elected officials with police powers have a long, cruel history in Arizona of abusing that power to punish political opponents.

The legal pursuit of county school Superintendent Sandra Dowling - investigated with overbearing force by Arpaio, prosecuted by the state attorney general and, later, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and encouraged, ironically, by Stapley and other supervisors - comes to mind.

But nothing - not even the brutal, years-long torment of Dowling - compares with the abuse of power Thomas is now perpetrating against the Board of Supervisors.

At least in the Dowling case, the school superintendent’s books were sufficiently sloppy and impenetrable to suspect real wrong-doing.

There is no justification for turning minor acts of carelessness into full-blown felony charges.

No justification that is not malicious and predatory, that is.

Andrew Thomas is usurping justice.

In the months to come, we intend to find out who - if anyone - will have the guts to make him stop.

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Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., which includes Phoenix and its sprawling surroundings, is an aggressive self-promoter with a new claim to fame: a reality show on Fox called “Smile … You’re Under Arrest!” It’s a “Candid Camera” for crooks, with actors luring fugitives into compromising situations, for laughs.

It’s easy to snicker at the sight of a publicity-addicted law-enforcement official wallowing with the dregs of reality TV, sharing a channel with shows like “My Bare Lady,” “The Glutton Bowl” and “World Famous for Dicking Around.”

But Sheriff Arpaio is armed and dangerous. He is a genuine public menace with a long and well-documented trail of inmate abuses, unjustified arrests, racial profiling, brutal and inept policing and wasteful spending.

For years he has won fawning press coverage by playing the role of “America’s Toughest Sheriff.” But now another side of the story — that is, the truth — is leaking out.

The latest example is a report released this month that sums up, in devastating detail, the cost of Sheriff Arpaio’s reign. It was issued not by the sheriff’s usual critics — whom he routinely dismisses as a band of bleeding-hearts — but by the Goldwater Institute, a think tank dedicated to the principles of the late Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, an obelisk of conservatism.

Read a summary here, or the full pdf.

Here’s the gist.

What has risen on Sheriff Arpaio’s watch: violent crimes (up 69 percent overall from 2004 to 2007, with homicides up 166 percent in those three years), 911 response times, unserved arrest warrants, racist sweeps of Latino neighborhoods, and dollars paid out in budget overruns, overtime and lawsuit settlements.

What has declined: the arrest rate, the number of satellite booking stations, public access to department records, Sheriff Arpaio’s reputation.

The Goldwater report must bring some comfort to the residents of Maricopa County who have spent years raising the alarm about Sheriff Arpaio, with little effect outside Arizona.

They include a Web site, barriozona.com, that has tracked the sheriff’s terrorizing sweeps through Latino neighborhoods, and a dogged reporter, Stephen Lemons of The Phoenix New Times, who keeps the heat on Sheriff Arpaio in his blog. Mr. Lemons recently posted some chilling video from a public meeting of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, where Sheriff Arpaio’s deputies arrested citizens … for clapping.

Sheriff Arpaio was elected to a fifth term in November and is riding high, at least in the worlds of bad policing and jackass television.

But pride, they say, goes before a fall. Here’s hoping!

Visit Original Story

•  Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas - at war and, in his mind, under siege from countless battlefronts - issued the oddest statement last week.

In a joint written statement with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, his partner in . . . er, law enforcement, or something like it . . . Thomas wrote, in part:

“We’re not intimidated.”

Andy Thomas is not intimidated? Well, how about the county supervisors you’re threatening to throw into prison for a few hundred years for felonious paperwork filing? Don’t you suppose that they’re a little nervous, Andy?

Thomas’ latest fight with the Board of Supervisors is over control of the board’s lawyers. Why Thomas chose to drag his political goombah, Arpaio, into this debate is anyone’s guess. I suppose it’s always handy to have someone with a tank and a .50-caliber machine gun on your side when you’re preparing for an intimidating onslaught from county supervisors.

But just who does Thomas think is trying to intimidate, anyway?

I spoke with one of the county supervisors early last week. This supervisor - who I will not identify in any way, other than to say it’s not the indicted one - was without exception the most intimidated politician I’ve ever spoken with. This politician would not speak to me over a land phone line for fear that Thomas might be listening. He/she was worried about stopping by The Arizona Republic building for fear that Thomas’ agents might be snapping pictures nearby.

Andy Thomas doesn’t know from intimidation. Except how to apply it.

•  Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee released a report on Dec. 11 regarding global warming. Its title pretty much summed up the contents: “More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims; Scientists Continue To Debunk ‘Consensus’ in 2008.”

Precision of language is important regarding sensitive issues, and you just don’t get much more sensitive than global warming.

In the report, the Republicans are not denying global warming. They are not even arguing the degree of human contribution to warming. For the most part, they are not arguing about global warming at all.

They are arguing the presumptuous conclusion of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that there is a hard and fast “consensus” among scientists about all aspects of warming and that the debate is ended - a position so fundamentally anti-scientific in nature that it boggles the mind.

Anyway, you can find it at the committee’s Web site at epw.senate.gov/public. Click on “Minority Page.”

•  One last word about “intimidation.”

This is one of those little stories that hardly seemed relevant to anything at the time but now speaks loudly about the guys at war with the county supervisors.

Last April, I wrote one of those little “Quick Hits” that appear at the top of our Opinion pages. It was about Joe Dana, the Channel 12 reporter who is such a burr in the side of Arpaio and his squad of yes-men. I applauded Dana’s reporting.

That same day, I received a message from one of Arpaio’s stable of press spokespeople, warning me (in a silly, half-veiled way) that unless I wanted to “assume personal liability for Joseph Dana’s actions,” I should provide him with “just what specific knowledge (I) possess about the smearing and slandering (KPNX-TV) is responsible for promulgating in the community . . . ”

This press spokesman (who, I should note, carries a badge) copied his messages to me to a pair of Phoenix-area private law firms.

Now, I’m not going to suggest I’ve never been intimidated. I am but human. But I don’t believe I could ever again look in a mirror without cursing if I let this self-important knucklehead scare me in the slightest. So, I boxed his ears a bit for employing such awful grammar in his e-mails and kicked him on his way.

And I paid no heed at all to his laughably half-veiled threats or his lawyers. Besides, I hear he’s no longer on the press beat.

Now, however, I take that passing incident more seriously. It’s not just about harmless, officious pomposity anymore.

There are real people out there who fear being thrown into jail on trumped-up charges. There are real people who, for good cause, fear wasting thousands on legal-defense bills.

Like I said, that’s intimidation.

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