Brown & Little, P.L.C. » Archive
You and What Army?
My recent prediction was wrong, and for a moment, being wrong never felt so good. Judge Donahoe of the Maricopa County Superior Court held Deputy Stoddard of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in contempt for rifling through a defense lawyer’s file in court. Here is the minute entry. Judge Donahoe’s order was unusual though, as Deputy Stoddard wasn’t fined or sentenced to a definite jail term as a result of his contempt. It wasn’t punitive, criminal contempt. Instead, it was civil contempt. The point was to coerce Deputy Stoddard to hold a press conference and apologize to the defense lawyer. The defense lawyer must be satisfied with the apology in order for Deputy Stoddard to avoid jail. The court’s order was strange, but that wasn’t the … Read entire article »
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Banning Good Taste
Given my predilection for the occasional stogie, I’ve considered writing something like this for quite some time. Although the The Stogie Guys beat me to it, strangely, I’m inspired to post something along similar lines. The weather in the Phoenix area right now lends itself perfectly to an evening cigar. I can think of few greater pleasures in life than sitting on my back porch with good company and savoring a delicious, handmade cigar. I’ve had a few nights like that these past few weeks. For an hour or two, I’ve had no place else to be and nothing else to do. Who could have wanted more? Although it isn’t a common indulgence, my life is far richer because of nights like those. I admire what … Read entire article »
Filed under: Government Rants
I Hope It's Just The Water
I tried to get through my 1:00 p.m. meeting on Thursday early enough to catch some of the most recent contempt proceedings in this case. You can get additional information about what’s going on here, here, here, here, and here, but I’ll give you a single, run-on-sentence summary of what people are reporting happened: one of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s goons brazenly looked through a defense attorney’s privileged and confidential file during a video-taped sentencing, committed misdemeanor theft stealing papers from the file, and had another henchman make copies before returning the stolen papers to the file, then got caught and perjured himself in subsequent contempt proceedings all the while lucking out with absurd decisions from two judges and a seemingly underwhelming show of outrage from multiple defense … Read entire article »
Filed under: Government Rants
David DeCosta Revisited
November 2nd, 2009 | 17 Comments
After this post generated a deluge of negative comments attacking me and protesting the case against David DeCosta, I responded with this post. That didn’t help matters, and the angry comments continued. Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice chimed in here, and Jeff Gamso at Gamso – For the Defense discussed the situation in this post. As the battle raged on with comments and emails of widely varying civility and rationality, I began reviewing the police reports in DeCosta’s case. Initially, I dreaded the idea of going over them. I was expecting to find overwhelming evidence of DeCosta’s guilt. After all, almost everyone who was asserting his innocence did so by criticizing me. People who try to make their case by personally attacking their opponent usually … Read entire article »
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