Deputy Steals Defense Lawyers File

[Lars]

double tap, please remove. sorry

and here I thought that was your suggestion....

Judge double taps the sheriff's deputy, and asks for the body to be removed. With a sorry to the cleaning crew?



More seriously, how is the above not, effectively a violation of your fifth amendment rights?

 

[Fargo]

How is what not a violation? Sorry, I'm just not sure what you are referencing.

Thanks,

Joe

 

[Lars]

the prosecution reading any notes prepared by the defence.
The prosecution is required to share all evidence with the defence. The reverse is not true. Reading that documentation should be a violation of the defendant's fifth amendment rights.

 

[evansvillethompsongunner]

"We're all living in Amerika; Cola-Cola, sometimes war..."

Joe Arpaio is famous for breaking/stretching the law to suit his needs, some of which I personally find laudable and some of it, condemnable... but it's definitely usurpation of the rule of law upon which our nation is based. I really think Mr. Arpaio was born into the wrong country in the wrong decade... I'm sure he'd be much more suited to Stalin's Russia or Hitler's Germany or Britain present-day, as in this nation, we have the rule of law, and no matter how amusing I find the resurrection of chain-gangs and other such questionable tactics (and I do think chain-gangs are pretty sweet), it's not quite faithful to the rule of law.

 

[Fargo]

the prosecution reading any notes prepared by the defence.
The prosecution is required to share all evidence with the defence. The reverse is not true. Reading that documentation should be a violation of the defendant's fifth amendment rights.

Oh, it is a violation of a lot of things for the prosecution to accept materials stolen from the defense; the canons of ethics, probably the receiving stolen property statute, and possibly the 5th Amendment. There is also a potential 1983 suit there too. That is why as the last link posted notes, the defense is going to try to get the case dismissed. Whether they will be successful or not I have no idea.

Either way, I can't see any way that any evidence obtained in that fashion would ever be admissible in court.

Best,


Joe

 

[mrjarrell]

Looks like he might have checked into the jail, but his buddies are alleging some clerical issues. My guess is he's got a nice cot in some office and isn't really in "jail". Bet he's not in pink underwear like everyone else and that he's not eating the same food that the inmates get.
From Heat City

Detention officer Adam Stoddard ignored his attorney’s advice tonight and bunked up in a Maricopa County jail, despite the fact that he cannot yet be booked there.
His attorney, Tom Liddy, said earlier that a clerical error by a judge had prevented the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office from booking one of their own into the jails.
“I told him to go home,” Liddy said. “But he said, no, he wanted to stay because that’s what the judge ordered.”

Stoddard was sent to the jail after he refused an order by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe to hold a news conference and publicly apologize to a local defense attorney.
The apology was called for after Stoddard was caught on courtroom security video on Oct. 19 taking a confidential document from the files of public defender Joanne Cuccia. He told the judge he believed the document would reveal some crime that was about to happen, but Donahoe rejected that, saying the paperwork revealed no such thing.
Donahoe gave him a deadline of Monday to apologize or else face jail time.
In a defiant public statement yesterday, Stoddard said he would rather go to jail than “apologize for doing the job I’ve been trained to do.”
But when Stoddard arrived for booking this evening, his peers at the sheriff’s office told him the paperwork to incarcerate him was somehow incorrect.
Liddy said he’s clueless about the logistics of Stoddard’s jailhouse stay tonight. “He is there voluntarily,” Liddy said.
The sheriff’s office didn’t have much to say either, with a spokesman adding only that Stoddard checked in at about 6 p.m.

More at the source.

 

[mrjarrell]

And the hits just keep on coming. Radley Balko has a longish update. To boil it down...Sheriff Joe, poster boy for tyranny in any locale, has lost his flipping mind and accused the courts of conspiring against him and his deputies. Playing the paranoia card must make him a real hero to some of his fans. The thieving cops brothers in blue have decided to abandon their posts with blue flu call offs and candle light vigils. Sheesh. They need to fire them all and call in the guard till they can hire good cops.

From The Agitator

When last we left the standoff in Maricopa County, Arizona, Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe had given Dep. Adam Stoddard a deadline by which to apologize for swiping documents from a defense attorney’s file in open court last month. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio vowed that Stoddard would not apologize. Stoddard then called a press conference Monday night in which he essentially thumbed his nose at Donahoe and continued to defend his breech of attorney-client privilege.
And since then? Yes, it’s gotten even crazier.

• The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office announced on Tuesday that Stoddard would surrender to jail ahead of his midnight deadline to aplogize. But when Stoddard showed up, the jail refused to book him, citing a “clerical error.” Stoddard insisted on spending the night in jail anyway.
• Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced he has filed a federal lawsuit against the county and its judges, alleging a “widespread conspiracy” against Arpaio and his officers. Arpaio remarkably and apparently with no self-awareness whatsoever called the county a “good ole boys network,” and commented that he had “never seen these kinds of things occur in the justice system.” Arpaio also called Donahoe’s contempt finding against Stoddard a “vendetta,” and said, “For political reasons, [Stoddard's] been thrown to the wolves.”
• Yesterday, the day after Stoddard spent a night in jail, 19 sheriff’s deputies scheduled to work security at the courthouse called in sick, throwing the day’s court proceedings into disarray. The building also had to be evacuated after a phone-in bomb threat.
• As crowds returned after the bomb threat was cleared, the law enforcement unions commenced with a conveniently-timed rally in front of the courthouse, calling Stoddard a “victim” and demanding that he be released from jail.
• MORE: Stoddard’s fellow officers will be holding nightly candlelight vigils for their comrade—who, by the way, is being paid while he’s in jail. Actually, as the linked New Times article explains, it’s not even a certainty that Stoddard is actually in jail. No one is saying where he’s being held, and there’s apparently no record of him being booked.

Video at the source.
Looks like we have yet another case of cops gone wild in Maricopa. Maybe the judge can get some out of town marshals, find Stoddard and throw his butt in a real jail somewhere outside of Sheriff Joe's purview.

 

[mrjarrell]

From the lunatic asylum of Maricopa County comes news that an injunction had to be laid down to stop Sheriff Arpaio from adding the judge who caught his deputy from retaliation. The so-called "Peoples Sheriff" is out of control and needs a serious slap down.
From AZ Central

The Arizona Court of Appeals has issued a temporary order that forbids the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office from serving a search warrant on either the home or the chambers of Superior Court Judge Barbara Mundell.
Rumors had circulated all day Thursday that a search was imminent.
The order, signed Thursday night by Appeals Court Presiding Judge Maurice Portley, repeats information from a petition for special action filed on behalf of Mundell.
he petition contends that the computer at Mundell's house contains information that's "a mirror image" of the computer in her judicial chambers, including material that's protected by judicial privilege and that the Sheriff's Office is not entitled to legally. The order refers specifically to an earlier battle in which the Sheriff's Office was denied a public-records request to obtain e-mails of judges.
The appeals court has set a conference for 2 p.m. Friday to discuss the matter further.
The Sheriff's Office would not comment on whether it has obtained a search warrant on Mundell.
Mundell has been named, in along with three other judges, the board of supervisors and two private attorneys representing the supervisors, a federal racketeering suit filed by Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and Sheriff Arpaio,
On Wednesday, Thomas filed a criminal complaint against one of the judges, alleging bribery, hindering prosecution and obstruction of justice in county and Sheriff's investigation into the disputed court tower under construction.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Holy Desert Delirium, Batman!

Has everyone out there lost his mind because of the heat or scorpion stings or something?

How did the Sheriff get a warrant? Who is the judge that issued that?

Utter madness.

 

[Eddie]

Warrant

I thought it says he won't comment on whether or not he is seeking a warrant. It looks like all he filed is a public records request.

 

[mrjarrell]

William N. Grigg takes a look at the entire debacle and Joe Arpaio's reign of terror in Maricopa County. It's a rather inflammatory piece so, if you're easily offended avoid it. It's link heavy, so there are lots of citations to back up the authors statements. Worth the read.
From Pro Libertate

To his comrades in the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO), Adam Stoddard is a martyr to principle and an innocent victim of injustice -- a heroic figure unjustly consigned to prison by petty, power-hungry figures. His boss, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, went so far as to describe Stoddard as a "political prisoner" during his brief and uncommonly comfortable incarceration.


All of this, predictably enough, is nothing but several acres of stockyard carpeting.


Stoddard, a member of the MCSO's correctional unit, was videotaped stealing a document from the desk of a defense attorney. As a result he spent several days in the custody of his co-workers after being cited for contempt of court by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe for refusing to apologize for his offense.


It's important to recognize that Stoddard -- unlike many others who have been cited for contempt -- actually committed an offense against an individual's rights.
Stoddard claimed to have seen something on the handwritten documents that constituted a threat to “court security" -- some cryptic conjunction of the words "going to" "steal" and "money," which apparently weren't part of the same sentence.


In addition to his unusual ability to divine the concealed intentions of criminal defendants from words randomly scattered across a page of notes hand-written by somebody else, Deputy Stoddard apparently possesses some form of X-ray vision, since the document he stole was concealed by several on top of it.


Obviously, Stoddard is no ordinary deputy; he must be the Last Son of Krypton, concealing his true identity in the guise of a mild-mannered bailiff.


Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe wasn’t buying Stoddard's explanations, and was offended Stoddard was trying to sell it.


In his ruling he correctly observed that Stoddard's actions were "unreasonable and unlawful" and resulted in a breach of attorney-client privilege, and that Stoddard's facially ridiculous explanation -- which implicitly accused defense counsel Joanne Cuccia of collaboration in a crime -- injured the attorney's professional reputation.


Had a mere mundane committed an offense similar to Stoddard's, the penalty would have involved some combination of a fine and mandatory jail time. However, Judge Donahoe -- perhaps mindful of the need to maintain cordial relations with the brown-shirted paladins of public order who carry out his decrees -- didn’t send Stoddard immediately to jail, or slap him with a fine. Instead, he ordered Stoddard to apologize, in public, to defense attorney Cuccia.



While there were problems with this proposed compromise, it would have spared Stoddard from spending time behind bars by treating his offense as a mistake, rather than a crime. One could round down to "never" the frequency that common people are offered such consideration by the courts.


But Stoddard's actions weren't a mistake. They were the predictable product of the institutional culture of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. Under the reign of the oleaginous proto-fascist Joe Arpaio, the MCSO has mutated into a lawless armed clique suitable to a third world dictatorship. Indeed, Arpaio and his minions -- including a contingent called the "Special Enforcement Unit" -- have conducted late-night or early-morning raids to intimidate and imprison people who have criticized the Dear Leader.


The controversy involving Adam Stoddard came amid an escalating conflict between Arpaio and his critics in Maricopa County.

More at the source.

 

[mrjarrell]

William N. Grigg takes a look at the entire debacle and Joe Arpaio's reign of terror in Maricopa County. It's a rather inflammatory piece so, if you're easily offended avoid it. It's link heavy, so there are lots of citations to back up the authors statements. Worth the read.
From Pro Libertate

To his comrades in the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO), Adam Stoddard is a martyr to principle and an innocent victim of injustice -- a heroic figure unjustly consigned to prison by petty, power-hungry figures. His boss, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, went so far as to describe Stoddard as a "political prisoner" during his brief and uncommonly comfortable incarceration.


All of this, predictably enough, is nothing but several acres of stockyard carpeting.


Stoddard, a member of the MCSO's correctional unit, was videotaped stealing a document from the desk of a defense attorney. As a result he spent several days in the custody of his co-workers after being cited for contempt of court by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe for refusing to apologize for his offense.


It's important to recognize that Stoddard -- unlike many others who have been cited for contempt -- actually committed an offense against an individual's rights.
Stoddard claimed to have seen something on the handwritten documents that constituted a threat to “court security" -- some cryptic conjunction of the words "going to" "steal" and "money," which apparently weren't part of the same sentence.


In addition to his unusual ability to divine the concealed intentions of criminal defendants from words randomly scattered across a page of notes hand-written by somebody else, Deputy Stoddard apparently possesses some form of X-ray vision, since the document he stole was concealed by several on top of it.


Obviously, Stoddard is no ordinary deputy; he must be the Last Son of Krypton, concealing his true identity in the guise of a mild-mannered bailiff.


Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe wasn’t buying Stoddard's explanations, and was offended Stoddard was trying to sell it.


In his ruling he correctly observed that Stoddard's actions were "unreasonable and unlawful" and resulted in a breach of attorney-client privilege, and that Stoddard's facially ridiculous explanation -- which implicitly accused defense counsel Joanne Cuccia of collaboration in a crime -- injured the attorney's professional reputation.


Had a mere mundane committed an offense similar to Stoddard's, the penalty would have involved some combination of a fine and mandatory jail time. However, Judge Donahoe -- perhaps mindful of the need to maintain cordial relations with the brown-shirted paladins of public order who carry out his decrees -- didn’t send Stoddard immediately to jail, or slap him with a fine. Instead, he ordered Stoddard to apologize, in public, to defense attorney Cuccia.



While there were problems with this proposed compromise, it would have spared Stoddard from spending time behind bars by treating his offense as a mistake, rather than a crime. One could round down to "never" the frequency that common people are offered such consideration by the courts.


But Stoddard's actions weren't a mistake. They were the predictable product of the institutional culture of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. Under the reign of the oleaginous proto-fascist Joe Arpaio, the MCSO has mutated into a lawless armed clique suitable to a third world dictatorship. Indeed, Arpaio and his minions -- including a contingent called the "Special Enforcement Unit" -- have conducted late-night or early-morning raids to intimidate and imprison people who have criticized the Dear Leader.


The controversy involving Adam Stoddard came amid an escalating conflict between Arpaio and his critics in Maricopa County.

More at the source.