The Adam Stoddard case gets crazier
As someone who recently returned to Arizona after some years in those parts of the country that supposedly looks down their noses at rubes in the desert, I can say with some authority Arizona’s reputation is not as bad as it might be.
Joe Arpaio isn’t doing the state any favors, of course, and, yes, the Daily Show has taken a couple of shots at various goings-on.
But it’s not like most folks in DC or the Bay Area can, off the top of their head, recite Arizona’s place in the hierarchy of most markers of social advancement. (For the record, they are generally just a few hairs above those in the Deep South.)
However, if Andrew Thomas and Joe Arpaio keep it up, the rest of the country is going to take a closer look at how backwards and comical the state’s political system has become.
Back to the Adam Stoddard affair. After a couple of days of sickouts by sheriff’s deputies assigned to the courts, Arpaio is now apparently refusing to supply inmates to the judge’s courtroom. Heat City has the story:
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office has apparently stopped delivering inmates to the courtroom where a one of its detention officers was caught in an uproar that landed him in jail.
In a statement released late today, Superior Court Judge Lisa Flores said the sheriff’s office has flat-out stopped bringing inmates to her courtroom for their scheduled appearances.
The cutoff comes in the context of …
Since [Stoddard’s] jailing, Maricopa County’s justice system – one of the largest in the nation – has been thrown into a state of chaos, plagued by protests and a likely sickout by Stoddard’s coworkers, as well as bomb threats from a still-unknown source.
Stoddard’s boss, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, has described the detention officer as a “political prisoner” in his own jail. Arpaio’s supporters call Stoddard a victim of the ongoing disputes between the sheriff and other county leaders, including some judges.
Meanwhile, Stephen Lemons notes that the Goldwater Institute, in the form of director Clint Bolick, is slamming Arpaio’s handling of the case:
“Sworn law-enforcement officers take an oath to uphold the law. By effectively shutting down the very justice system they are employed to protect, the sheriff’s officers displayed contempt toward the rule of law. Taxpayers should hold them accountable for abrogating their essential duties.”
7:00 AM
Joe Arpaio's deputy: I won't apologize
There are many of them right now—this one we’ll call the Case of the Purloined Letter.
During a trial Oct. 19, a sheriff’s deputy working in court surreptitiously swiped a letter out of a defense attorney’s case file where her back was turned. The incident was caught on video tape.
The officer, Adam Stoddard, says that he saw some words on the letter that made him think that the lawyer’s client was planning a crime, and that grabbing it was justified. A judge disagreed, and ordered him to apologize.
Last night, the officer spoke publicly on the courthouse steps, saying … he wasn’t going to. Nick Martin was there:
Judge Donahoe has ordered me to feel something I do not.” Stoddard said. “He has ordered me to say something I cannot.”
The young detention officer, dressed in his brown duty uniform and wearing a badge, told the pack of journalists and other observers in front of the county’s main courthouse in downtown Phoenix that the judge had essentially “put me in a position where I must lie or go to jail.”
“I will not lie,” he said.
Stoddard has the backing of his boss, Joe Arpaio. As I understand it, Stoddard a) stole something; b) violated attorney-client privilege in two ways (first by looking at the lawyer’s papers and then stealing one); c) isn’t too awfully bright (he seems to have forgotten the room was being taped); and d) is possessed of that peculiar penchant of law-and-0rder types who, when caught doing something they shouldn’t, don’t apologize or evince a sense of shame but rather stonewall and bluster.
Stoddard was supposed to report to jail tonight but was not taken in because of a clerical error, Martin reports.
12:00 AM