A NON SMILER

Maricopa County, Arizona is so messed up right now; it is difficult to find a starting point from which any intelligent discussion could ensue.

Officials in different departments of the state are at each others’ throats.

And, as might be expected, funding is usually the reason behind interdepartmental bickering.

There are corrupt officials involved.

There are officials just attempting to survive attacks brought by these corrupt officials.

Before looking at this mess, some background must be provided.

There are 500,000 undocumented immigrants pouring into Arizona every year. Believe it or not the number is actually decreasing according to new Census data, but not in any significant amount that I can tell.

There are 5,000 undocumented immigrants who have been arrested ATTEMPTING TO LEAVE ARIZONA. That’s right; people who were attempting to go south and leave our country were arrested.

There are 4,000 undocumented immigrants currently serving prison terms in Arizona at a cost of tens of millions of dollars each year.

There have been huge weapon busts by the border patrol and state law enforcement. Believe it or not people come up here to purchase weapons and take them back to Mexico.

Everyone knows about the huge drug busts that are reported regularly as well as the gang wars just south of our borders. There are dirty police working out of Mexico and clean police working out of Mexico.

There are joint police actions being carried out by agreement between the governments of the U.S. and Mexico.

Anybody who thinks that some right wing attempt to bring law and order to this mess and send our military down there to ‘clean it up’ is crazy.

Anybody who thinks that that some magic law will somehow ‘absorb’ this immigration problem from South of our borders in a humane manner is nuts.

The Feds are attempting to ‘make do’ in a chaotic situation.

Mexico (a country who does not like its residents coming up here and purchasing weapons or selling drugs) is attempting to ‘make do’ in a chaotic situation.

Arizona is attempting to make do in a chaotic situation.

See: http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/article_a8661e8e-5b5b-5393-b2fc-da1dc1c21ac1.html

http://arizonaprisonwatch.blogspot.com/2010/11/suicidehomicide-rates-skyrocket-at-az.html

I was originally just going to make an attempt to lay out the current investigations of Arpaio because I despise the gentleman so very much. But the situation is even more complicated than just him. Then I was just going to take a look at the new stop and show me your papers legislation in Arizona that gets so much air time.

The fact is that Arizona Government—as least Maricopa Government—is so broken, I do not know how they are going to ever fix it. And all the politicians do is brandish idiotic slogans and propose new laws that are irrelevant to the situation down there.

THE PRISON SYSTEM IN MARICOPA COUNTY

The prisons are so over-crowded that tent cities have been created whereby tents are used to house murderers, drunk drivers and ‘illegals’ outside the main prison structures. Many of these prisoners have not even been convicted of a crime and live under insufferable conditions while awaiting trial. There is no escape from the heat; substandard meals are provided; the sick are ill tended; there are successful escapes by violent convicts who ultimately kill law biding citizens on the outside; there are Suicides  among these inmates; there are murders of prisoners by prisoners and I honestly cannot find any attempts to do anything about it by the government itself.

Sheriff Arpaio did not initiate this system. It already existed when he was first elected to the post in 1992. Everything I have read on this subject certainly underlines the fact that this 78 year old fascist prick has enhanced the system he fell into with real pizzazz and he keeps being elected for being the single meanest sheriff in America today. Arpaio has actually responded to critics in the media after being called on the carpet for the horrible conditions of his prisoners. He simply states that if our military can send troops into battle in the Middle East; if our soldiers have to endure 120 degree heat with all their body armor and such, these miscreants have no right to bitch about the situation they find themselves in. Even though a number of these ‘miscreants’ have not actually been convicted of miscreanting.

Now the ACLU and a number of organizations outside of government are suing the County and the State for these affronts to humanity for sure.

But I do not see the County, the State or the Federal Governments doing much at all to rectify the situation.

Special Management Unit: Prisoner suicide at ASPC Eyman

Prison suicide and gangs at Florence Central

Douglas Nunn
Patricia Velez

THE MARICOPA COUNTY PLAYERS

The sheriff’s job is to make arrests when he has probable cause to believe that some person has violated some law.

The prosecutor’s job is to properly charge a person of a crime when he has reviewed the evidence at his disposal and he must dutifully prosecute that suspect.

The judge’s job in the criminal courts is to provide a forum for a fair trial and then, upon conviction, sentence the convicted appropriately. The judge has many other duties of course. He must sign subpoenas and arrest warrants and search warrants when presented with the proper evidence upon demand by the Sheriff or the prosecutor.

In Maricopa Country, there is a Board of Supervisors responsible for funding this system of criminal enforcement.

THE PROSECUTOR

Andrew Payton Thomas was the Maricopa County Attorney from January of 2005 through April of this year. It is an elected office.

He first came into national prominence by prosecuting a 16 year old boy for showing his friends a Playboy Magazine.

I just throw that in there to underline the fact that this gentleman is nuts.

During the 2008 campaign, Thomas’ ethics became an issue because he had spent some $27 million of his available funds hiring outside private attorneys to handle certain actions and, as you might guess, his old firm received a good portion of those funds. (For a variety of reasons D.A.’s all over the country are forced to hire outside law firms when there are conflicts of interests or when civil issues come to the fore.)

I just throw that in to demonstrate that the gentleman has not always avoided the appearance of impropriety.

WIKI says:

On December 6, 2010, the report from the Arizona Supreme Court was released, and with the recommendation that Thomas be disbarred. The report alleges 32 ethics rules violations by Thomas, involving conflicts of interest, dishonesty, misrepresentation, filing a frivolous suit, and filing charges against county officials solely to embarrass or burden them. The report also alleges that Thomas engaged in criminal conduct and "conspired... with others to injure, oppress, threaten or intimidate Judge (Gary) Donahoe" by filing a criminal complaint against him.^[20]

The investigative report was provided to a judge appointed by the Supreme Court, who made the decision to move forward with disciplinary recommendations against Thomas. The State Bar of Arizona's probable cause orders, signed by Judge Charles E. Jones, state that "Ethical violations by respondent, as described by Independent Bar Counsel, are far-reaching and numerous. Evidence thus far adduced portrays a reckless, four-year campaign of corruption and power abuse by respondent as a public official, undertaken at enormous and mostly wasteful cost to the taxpayers... Motivation for much of the alleged impropriety appears retaliatory, intended to do personal harm to the reputations of judges, county supervisors and other county officials... Actions by respondent appear intent on intimidation, focused on political gain, and appear fully disconnected from professional and prosecutorial standards long associated with the administration of justice ..." Judge Jones added a 33rd ethical violation in the probable cause orders: that Thomas failed to submit substantive responses to the investigator.

Also see:  http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2010/12/06/20101206andrew-thomas-discipline-arizona-supreme-court.html

The Phoenix News had this to say:

The investigation, released Monday by the Arizona Supreme Court, details alleged ethics violations by Thomas, former Deputy County Attorney Lisa Aubuchon and prosecutor Rachel Alexander, and concluded that there is probable cause to file a formal complaint with the state bar against all three.

The investigation centered on the work of a public corruption task force created by Thomas and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Over a three-year period, targets of that task force included county supervisors, most notably Supervisors Don Stapley and Mary Rose Wilcox, judges and county employees.

Several cases resulted in indictments, but all were eventually dismissed or withdrawn.

http://www.kpho.com/news/26038299/detail.html

So basically Thomas and his office teamed up with Arpaio and went to war against the Board of Supervisors as well as certain judges.

It appears that the Board of Supervisors was not acceding to the sheriff’s requests for funding.

It appears that judges were not handing down tough enough sentences or signing onto certain warrants and such to the satisfaction of the sheriff and the D.A.

And this prosecutor was in the midst of a campaign to become the Attorney General of the State of Arizona.

So far, as a direct result of the actions of this idiot, there are now pending over $56 million in claims against Maricopa County.

The years-long conflicts among Arpaio, Thomas and the supervisors has cost $5.6 million over the past two years, according to a Republic analysis of public records.

The five million alone could have purchased a lot of insulin and fresh lunch meat for the prisoners.

What a county!!!

THE JUDGES

Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe evidently was not acceding to the demands of the sheriff’s department or the prosecutor’s office. So Andrew Thomas initiated an investigation through a grand jury.

Now you have to understand Donahoe’s situation here. He was in charge of the criminal docket. Once an investigation had begun, he could no longer set the court calendar. So he had to step down from that post and, I assume, could only hear civil cases. And the other judges who were being attacked by the prosecutor had their hands tied also.

And one must assume that the relationships between the prosecutor’s office and all the remaining judges were more than just strained. And the relationships between the Sheriff’s Department and the remaining judges were strained.

And now with disbarment proceedings against Thomas and his crew, Arpaio aint lookin too good, as it were. Especially since a few of the charges against Thomas have the prosecutor’s office suborning perjury; the perjury committed by the sheriff and his departmental employees.

Therefore, one must assume that the entire criminal court system in Maricopa County was busted.

So Donahoe has filed a civil claim against Maricopa County for defamation of character and tortuous conduct and of course lists Thomas and Arpaio as individual defendants.

ARPAIO

Sheriff Joseph M. Arpaio’s mom died as a direct result of his birth in 1932 and it has been a downhill slide for those around him ever since that tragic event.

Arpaio is currently the subject of FBI,^[5]United States Department of Justice,^[6] and Federal Grand Jury^[7] investigations for civil rights violations and abuse of power, and is the defendant in a federal class-action suit for racial profiling

 

4 years in the Army.

25 years as a DEA agent.

18 years as Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona. 

Joe Arpaio claims he had nothing to do with prosecutorial misconduct since he is the sheriff and only prosecutors can be guilty of prosecutorial conduct. Yeah, that is his response when the investigation demonstrates that he and his employees perjured themselves in official court documents.

Now, there are not just problems between his department and the courts and the prosecutor’s office—the new County Attorney, although an old ‘crony’ of Thomas is certainly watching his step in this mess.

No, there are problems and I mean severe problems within Arpaio’s own department.

If you really have no life at all, take the time to grab a few laughs by reading a 63 page memorandum:

The 63-page memo (see MEMO here in PDF format), first reported Thursday by the Arizona Republic, blames Arpaio's longtime No. 2 man, Chief Deputy Dave Hendershott, for the alleged criminal wrongdoing.

It comes as a federal grand jury is examining whether Arpaio and allies in the local prosecutor's office abused their power by investigating and prosecuting political foes. Arpaio's department is also the subject of a separate federal civil rights investigation into whether it uses racial profiling while enforcing immigration laws.

The memo to Arpaio, written by Deputy Chief Frank Munnell, is a plea for the sheriff to retake control of the department from Hendershott. Munnell, a 30-year department veteran who oversees patrol operations, called for an outside investigation of his allegations.

This Hendershott is one of the biggest whiners I have read in years. I mean his memo records when one employee calls another employee a name. It recalls when certain employees had their feelings hurt.

And the entire time I took to read it I could not help but think of the prisoners who were deprived of insulin and stuck eating green bologna.

Arpaio is also accused of mishandling some 80 million dollars:

An analysis by the Maricopa County Office of Management and Budget, completed in September, 2010, found Arpaio has misspent at as much as $80 million in taxpayer dollars over the previous 5 years.^[75][76]

The analysis showed that money from a restricted detention fund which could only legally be used to pay for jail items, such as food, detention officers' salaries and equipment, was used to pay employees to patrol Maricopa County.^[75] The analysis also showed that many Sheriff's Office employees, whose salaries were paid from the restricted detention fund, were working job assignments different than those recorded in their personnel records. Arpaio's office kept a separate set of personnel books detailing actual work assignments, different than information kept on the county's official human-resources records.^[76]

Arpaio used the detention fund to pay for investigations of political rivals, and activities involving his human-smuggling unit.

So we know that the Sheriff has been investigated by the Arizona OMB.

The Feds are investigating him for Civil Rights Violations. http://abcnews.go.com/WN/arizona-sheriff-joe-arpaio-investigation-us-department-justice/story?id=11556736

A Federal Grand Jury began investigating Arpaio last January for abuses of power, I assume related to the Thomas fiascos as well as Civil Rights Violations. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/08/politics/main6071928.shtml

And, of course, Arpaio is calling for an investigation of the Federal Investigators who are investigating him. http://ktar.com/?nid=6&sid=1174078

Arpaio of course refuses hand over documents and other materials to the Federal Investigators. http://washingtonindependent.com/95040/sheriff-joe-arpaio-continues-to-delay-civil-rights-investigation

The Pinal Country Sheriff’s Department is investigating Arpaio, much to the consternation of the current Maricopa County Attorney. The humor in all this is that the Pinal County Sheriff is supposed to seek reimbursement for the costs of this investigation from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department. http://patdollard.com/2010/09/county-attorney-upset-about-babeus-investigation-of-arpaio/

And do not believe for one minute that Arpaio is not going to be charged somewhere along the line with perjury in addition to obstruction of justice due to the counts pending against Thomas.

 To sum this chaos up; the total break down of the criminal justice system in Maricopa County is evident. The State Supreme Court, surrounding counties, and the Feds are all investigating the players involved in this break down.

But folks, my concern is with the prisoners first and then the undocumented immigrants second.

The rest of this is all theatre to me. Although it is heartening to know that Thomas will not become the next Attorney General for the great state of Arizona.

And I did not even get into the Board of Supervisors. They are also suing the shite out of their own county due to indictments and investigations relating to their personal lives as well as their professional duties.

In case I missed some links up yonders, here are some links providing some more information on the state of the prisons in Arizona as well as the information concerning the Thomas investigation.

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2010/09/arizona_prison_escapees_could.php

http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2010/12/06/20101206andrew-thomas-discipline-arizona-supreme-court.html#ixzz19QQiRpKk

 http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2010/03/judge_gary_donahoe_prepares_to.php 

http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/12/03/32293.htm

http://arizonaprisonwatch.blogspot.com/2010/11/suicidehomicide-rates-skyrocket-at-az.html