Half of the people beg for economic freedom, freedom from over-regulation and over-taxation. They ask for the government to quit meddling and let them revive the economy with their industry. I can relate to them, but I can also relate to the other half. They beg for the government to prevent corporations from behaving badly. They ask elected officials to stop the greed and share wealth with those less fortunate. If either side got what they wanted, I could probably learn to live with it and be happy. The actual result just breeds frustration.

Want liberty? The government will give you the freedom to fail, but it’ll still give your biggest competitors subsidies and a blank check for a safety net. It’ll institute universal health care, but it’ll give you freedom to figure out on your own how to comply with all of the new insurance requirements and tax laws. You’re free to screw up and pay the penalty.

Want charity? The government will redistribute wealth, but it’s all going to go to the very corporations that got us in this economic mess. The middle and lower classes now get to share their collective wealth with the super-rich, give alms to billionaires. Universal health care means we’re forced to get insurance from and line the pockets of corrupt, greedy companies.

I feel like US politics are nothing more than a bad remake of Bedazzled with the federal government playing the role of satan. Everyone keeps getting what they wish for, but it’s always in some twisted, ironic way. I guess that’s what happens when you make deals with the devil.

I don’t have a solution for any of this. The country is clearly divided, with one side militantly demanding Coke and the other militantly demanding Pepsi. The government keeps giving everyone crappy Phoenix tap water, but no one quits toeing the Coke/Pepsi line because we’re all worried the other side might win.

Self-awareness would be better, but mass frustration is probably an appropriate reaction.

The case that brought me to near tears in court this year didn’t involve DUI or children. Rather, it was a fraud case where my client wrote several unauthorized checks for small amounts. She found her ex-boyfriend’s checkbook in a box; they separated months earlier after living together for two years. It was a simple case. The State had photos of her at the bank and copies of the checks. She was charged with several counts of forgery and, shockingly, a class 2 felony count of control of a criminal enterprise.

Unfortunately for my client, she pled to two minor drug charges a month before committing the bad check offenses. She hadn’t had time to get started on probation and kick her drug habit. We had evidence that she was being strongly influenced by a couple of shady individuals who received the bulk of the money but managed to avoid prosecution. We didn’t think we could have won at trial on a duress defense. She was a thirty-year-old mom and had no prior felonies a few months before writing those bad checks. So what is a reasonable absolute minimum should she lose at trial?

How about 15 years on the class two and 10 years if she lost on any of the class 4 felony fraud charges? Yep, good ol’ tough mandatory sentencing Arizona style. Because she was on probation, she could receive no less than the presumptive sentence. Her petty drug charges, which I’m guessing in most States would never have been felonies, maxed her out on the repetitive offender sentencing guidelines.

Fortunately, a safety valve exists on ridiculous mandatory minimums: reasonable plea offers. Unfortunately for my client, she resides in Maricopa County. I was appalled to find myself fighting tooth and nail for plea that would get my client less than half a decade. Why? Policy. Before I was assigned the case, my client rejected her initial offer of between 4.5 and 7 years. We had evidence she didn’t understand the plea when it was offered. However, without getting the previous attorney to admit to misinforming the client (yeah, right), we had to fight for a stipulated sentence far above anything remotely resembling justice.

I found myself fighting back tears when speaking to her family. Explaining to mom that her daughter was going to serve four-plus years over some checks totaling less than the value of a Yugo had me fighting frustration that felt near primitive. I felt like a failure. Ego is a fact of life for all trial attorneys, but especially for criminal defense attorneys. We all feel the prick of defeat even when deep down we know that that particular client didn’t get a raw deal. This case felt more like a sword thrust than a prick.

I worked her case hard. I think I’m usually pretty darn good at getting good plea offers. By the numbers, I got her a quarter of her potential minimum sentence if she lost at trial. It didn’t remotely feel good. This time, I felt I got put through the wringer by Arizona law and ridiculous policy guidelines, and nothing I did made it close to just. I told her more than once that she was the poster child for unfair law and policy.

I’m fond of the term “Perfect Storm.” I don’t use it here because it implies a rare convergence of events. Here, it’s just policy. I hope policy changes in Maricopa County. I’m not dumb enough to hope legislators start repealing absurd laws.

There must be something wrong with me, as I found the poster amusing. It took me a second to put my finger on just why that was. Maybe CCA intended to have zero tolerance when it comes to employees who facilitate suicide among inmates, but if it’s like any other big, oppressive company or government entity, the burden of any zero tolerance policy is going to fall squarely on the shoulders of people the policy is intended to help.

It really is a perfect example of zero tolerance thinking in action. Only when government is involved, directly or indirectly, would anyone think that taking caged, hopeless, mentally ill people and making their lives suck just a little bit more using stupid policies and intolerance is a good way to cut down on the suicide rate.

He had a lot of prior felony convictions. Looking through his past, though, I could see that he never really hurt anyone except himself. He was an addict, and he kept getting busted. He never got a break. He never conquered his demons. His personal drug habit eventually led him to make small-time sales, and by the time I met him, he’d amassed a significant criminal history. He stood accused of making five separate crack sales to an undercover officer. They were all videotaped and partially witnessed by other officers.

Because he was on parole at the time and due to his priors, he faced a ludicrous amount of time. By my calculations, confirmed by the settlement judge and prosecutor, best case scenario losing at trial was virtually guaranteed to be no less than 31.5 years flat. By “flat,” I mean he’d have to serve every single day. No early release. He’s approaching forty and has a son who is a toddler.

I always tell clients there are two kinds of settlement conferences, the kind where the judge is going to scare them into pleading guilty and the kind where the judge leans on the prosecutor to make a better offer. This one was a little of both. The judge we chose always gives this incredible speech that can make damn near anyone plead guilty. That’s probably why the prosecutor wanted to use him. I wanted him because I knew a settlement in front of him was my client’s best chance of getting the prosecutor to budge on the offer. The judge’s intensity cuts both ways. Turned out the prosecutor and I were both right. She dropped a huge amount of time off the plea, and my client ended up pleading guilty.

It would have been a tough case to defend. That’s putting it lightly. Entrapment wouldn’t work because we’d have to show the client wasn’t predisposed to commit the offense; he’d pled guilty to the same thing twice before. Brainstorming, I explained that to the client and he looked at me, exclaiming “but people change!” He smiled to let me know he was making light of the situation. Like I said, I really like the guy. Unfortunately, the videos were crystal clear. The authorities were thorough in putting together their case.

Mitigation wasn’t easy either. Explaining to a judge how affable your client is won’t exactly get him a super-mitigated sentence, even if it’s true. Talking with him about mitigation, he made one of the funniest little speeches I’ve ever heard:

It’s crack, man! It ain’t meth. Everyone loves meth these days. You know how embarrassing it is to be sellin’ crack? You can’t give away that shit no more! Sure, it’s a bad, bad drug, but it ain’t like no one’s gettin’ no blowjobs for crack. It ain’t 1984. It’s only undercover officers and busted old crack ho’s buyin’ it. It’s a retro drug.

I doubt that would’ve been effective mitigation at sentencing. He has a genuineness about him that makes his humor both heartfelt and tragic, but I think that would be lost on all but the rarest of judicial officers.

As a result of the plea he entered at the settlement conference, my client is now serving over a decade in prison. Meanwhile, I toss and turn trying to sleep at night. I am depressed about the outcome. Even at happy hour yesterday with a bunch of other criminal defense lawyers, I couldn’t get over the case and enjoy myself. Other attorneys told me it was a great offer given his exposure and the facts of the case. It’s supposedly far less time than was offered to other defendants swept up in the same series of DEA undercover operations. Still, I’m upset.

A decade in a cage for drugs. Think about it. My client was a high school football star. He went to college. His son will be in high school when he gets out. His poor child will have spent his formative years without a dad.

The judge’s speech at settlement includes a part about how no defendant ever sees himself being at the defense table when he’s a kid. I got choked up thinking about my client’s life. I remembered mitigation I read in his oldest cases. Back then, his lawyers wrote how he had a bright future ahead of him, how someday he would be a good father, a coach, and maybe a teacher. It is unclear whether his future can ever hold those things. I hope more than anything that it does.

The judge’s speech also focuses heavily on the risk of trial. When he asked my client if he’d ever been to trial, my client shook his head. Suddenly, I felt terrible. Six felonies and not a single trial? My client had spent most of his adult life behind bars, and he’s not once gone down swinging? I wanted to stand up and pound the table. I wanted to reject all offers and continue fighting the state for him, all the way to the bitter end. Now, I am ashamed I felt that way. He would have ended up serving a life sentence for my arrogance.

I wrote in my last post that you can only really complain about the outcome of something if you didn’t participate in the flawed system that let it happen. I now think I was wrong on that point, but that’s not my reason for bringing it up. A regular commenter on this blog wrote in response that, by that logic, “because your posts show that you think the criminal justice system, in which you are a participant, is flawed, you cannot complain about the system.” Is he right? Is that why my client’s sentence upsets me so much?

I set the case for settlement confident I could get a better offer that way, but also knowing my client was likely to plead under pressure from the judge in the event we got a great offer. I participated in a system that’s making a little boy grow up without a dad. A bright, funny, talented man is going back to prison. His dreams are on a ten-year hiatus. This is the drug war, and I’m a part of it. I minimized its damage as to one person, but he’s sitting in a cage because an undercover drug cop called him up and offered him $60.00 for a tiny little bag full of C17H21NO4. I’m disgusted with myself for participating. Worst of all, I worry I may not even have the right to complain.

Inside, a probation officer was interviewing a defendant for a presentence report. He pled guilty, and she was getting information for the judge who was going to sentence him. She wasn’t very good at keeping the volume of her voice at a reasonable level and kept saying “okidokie” to the guy’s responses. She was probably in her late twenties, and she was overweight. She had a social worker look about her. Her straight red hair was pulled back in a very tight ponytail. She was wearing black capri pants (“shpants,” as my sister calls them) and a lime green tee shirt.

When she asked the defendant about his past drug use, it was apparent that she didn’t have the slightest idea about recreational drugs. She asked him if he’d ever smoked crack, and he said yes. Then, she asked him if he’d ever used cocaine. His response of “uh…yeah…I said I smoked crack” might as well have been “c’mon you moron, crack is a form of cocaine you smoke.” He was irritated at her for not knowing.

He was going to prison for a burglary charge, and he had a significant criminal history. He had an explanation for why he did what he did. He had a sad life story. She responded with lots of okidokies and very little sympathy.

At the end of the interview, she asked him a series of questions to which he was only allowed to answer yes, no, or maybe. Here are some of the ones I recall:

Would most people commit crimes if they thought they could get away with it?
Is society to blame for most crime?
Do you agree that a person should do whatever it takes to make money?
Do you feel you’ve been treated fairly?

She also asked him these two questions:

True or false: schoolteachers just like having power over students?
True of false: police officers just like having power over people?

I would have failed her test. Whatever she was seeking, I doubt I could’ve given it to her. My presentence report would’ve said I had a bad attitude, no respect for authority, or maybe something worse.

I believe most people would commit crimes if they thought they could get away with it. Look at speeding. There are laws against speeding, yet almost every single person on the freeway speeds. The government tells us speeding is dangerous. People all seem to agree that speeding puts others in jeopardy, yet everyone complains about speeding tickets when they’re caught. People think they can get away with speeding, so they do it. Believing it’s a safety issue, they put safety second to convenience. Their convenience. Other people’s safety. If people thought they could get away with more, I think they’d give it a try.

I also believe society is to blame for most crime. A lot of people have it bad. They never had a chance. It’s largely society’s fault. Most of my clients have had bad home lives, traumatic life events, and terrible mental or physical difficulties. All of my clients have at some point been mistreated, marginalized, or ignored altogether by society.

As for the third question, if money is the only thing that can assure that someone survives, whatever-it-takes might be exactly what’s in order. The guy being interviewed may have burglarized a home to feed his family. He also may have done it because he has no respect for other people and their property. Yes, no, and maybe can’t possibly answer such a complex question. The question isn’t fair.

The last yes, no, or maybe question might have been the worst. Nobody’s treated fairly in our system. The state indicts in secret. Prosecutors overcharge. Laws are too broad, and mandatory minimums are too common and too harsh. Priors long past follow people to their graves. Defendants are pushed through the system like cattle. There’s nothing fair about it.

Finally, there are a lot of schoolteachers who just like having power over students. There are a lot of police officers who just like having power over people in general. True or false can’t possibly answer either of those questions.

After the probation officer finished, she shuffled past me with a faint smile on her face. I caught a glimpse of the defendant in the visitation room. He was grizzled, with a glass eye and scars everywhere. He was rail thin and had a head of curly black hair. I looked back at the probation officer. She waited impatiently to get buzzed out of the jail hallway while fiddling with her ponytail.

The stupid questions and the stark contrast between the probation officer and the defendant made a strong impression. She shouldn’t be in a position to report on him. He’s experienced things that she can’t even fathom. I’d guarantee it.

I imagine the probation officer sitting in her office, surrounded by bric-a-brac as she types up a report about that man’s antisocial personality and escalating drug use. A judge will read what she writes and commit a fellow human being to state custody for a term of years. The judge may have struggled less in his or her life than the probation officer.

What kind of sick, twisted system do we have where the coddled get to judge those among us who’ve had real life experiences?

From what I’ve read, it seems Thomas might be the subject of a federal grand jury investigation. Earlier this year, a court apparently found that he prosecuted people for personal political advantage and personal political retribution. The year before, judges supposedly called him unethical. I understand he’s got a pending bar investigation, so his license to practice law may be in trouble.

Horne doesn’t seem that much better. He supposedly ran an investment firm that went bankrupt in 1970, earning him a lifetime trading ban from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Horne allegedly submitted a false balance sheet, misrepresenting his firm’s assets. He also later failed to disclose that bankruptcy.

Read this article and check out this website. If they did even a small portion of the things they’re each alleged to have done, it’s incredible that they would be the Republican front runners for attorney general.

I know a lot of lawyers, but I certainly don’t know many who’ve been accused of being evil and unethical by judges. I can’t say I know many who’ve ever been investigated by federal grand juries either. I probably don’t know any. The vast majority of lawyers I know have never had even the slightest trouble with the bar, and they certainly haven’t received a lifetime trading ban from the SEC.

If I knew them, of all the lawyers I know, Thomas and Horne would stand out as having unusually sketchy backgrounds. Does anyone other than me find it amusing that best the Republican party seems to be able to come up with is two Harvard Law grads who have things on their resume that would make many of my clients blush?

The topic of the study seemed so familiar, yet the numbers were so much more stunning than I ever could have imagined. I scoured blogs to see if someone else had posted about it, yet I found only one article. Let me know if I’ve missed others.

The statistics are incredible: we now incarcerate 240% more people than we did in 1980; in 2008, one out of every 48 working-age men was in prison or jail; non-violent offenders make up over 60% of the prison and jail population; drug offenders now account for about one-fourth of all offenders behind bars.

Those are just some of the numbers that appear in the summary. If you want a real shock, have a look at the graph comparing us to other countries on page three, or the graph showing changes in our incarceration rate over time on page six. The study is such an incredible argument against strict prison sentences that it’s almost hard to believe the numbers are real.

I believe the numbers because I participate in the system that throws such an absurd number of people in cages. I see prosecutors make decade-or-more prison offers to nonviolent offenders. I see judges sentence people who lose at trial to sentences that far surpass the life expectancy of any human. Away from work, every time I’m exposed to the news, I hear people arguing that we need to create new crimes or impose harsher sentences.

Why do we think imprisonment works? The numbers certainly don’t say it does. My experience certainly doesn’t say it does.

Prison changes people, but not for the better. I have clients who got hooked on meth in prison. I have clients who entered prison as small-time criminals and left with the network necessary to become big-time criminals.

Many of my repeat-offender clients have decades of booking photos in their files. I see them getting more tattooed, more muscular, and angrier with each photo. I’ve flipped through far too many series of photos that start with a scared, confused kid and end with a photo of the kind of person most people think should belong in prison. We force people to turn into what we thought they were at the beginning, before we knew what they might have had the potential to become.

Does anyone truly believe that prison rehabilitates? The public discourse certainly isn’t about getting prisoners the educational and vocational training they need to reintegrate into society; it’s about shaming them Sheriff-Joe-style, making their lives miserable for the duration of their stay. When they’re finally released from the hell we created for them, we throw them back in after doing what we taught them to do.  We shake our fingers at them for not playing nice.

People often throw around a quote from Albert Einstein about how insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It’s a good quote, and it’s especially apt here. Reading the study, I feel like we have to wake up sooner or later. How can we argue with those numbers? When will the insanity stop?

I worry because I see no end in sight. We will not change because we don’t have to change. I expect that we will sooner collapse than rethink our failed policies. As a country, we must be insane. That’s what worries me the most.

I don’t want to hurt Oprah’s feelings, but I think she needs to know she’s wasting her time. People are never going to quit using their phone while they drive, just like some people are never going to quit driving drunk, driving tired, or driving while eating burritos. For decades, we’ve thrown away our civil liberties in the name of safety. We’ve drafted laws providing for vehicle impounds and license suspensions long before drunk drivers even make to to their first court hearing. We’ve put up roadblocks, required ignition interlock devices for all offenders, and added so many mandatory minimum fines, jail terms, and other penalties that you may be better off killing someone with your car sober than being stopped driving with your taillight out while impaired to the slightest degree. None of that seems to be stopping anybody; the DUI clients come in at the same rate now as they did when I first started handling these cases, and I have a tough time believing statistics touting the positive effect of our tyranny when it comes to drunk driving. If the real numbers were that great, MADD wouldn’t have to keep making them up.

Oprah shouldn’t be too sad because I’m going to propose something that might help. Here it is: start teaching people how to drive better while they’re distracted. That’s right. Think back to that girl in the golf cart I saw on TV. Put every driver in a golf cart and make them learn how to text and drive safely. Maybe start simple, like talking on speaker phone while driving, then eventually let people progress to things like texting, folding laundry, doing sudoku puzzles, or whatever else people like to do while they drive. We should know by now that we can’t eradicate DWD, so why not teach people the skills they need to multi-task better? There have to be techniques to enable you to text and drive more safely. Maybe there’s a certain way to hold your phone. Maybe you have to track a certain way with your eyes as you shift your attention between the road and your phone. Personally, I have no clue how best to drive distracted. Someone must know. Why not figure it out and teach people?

I won’t be surprised if I get a lot of angry people telling me how dangerous DWD is. Every one of those people will be hopelessly confusing the issues. DWD probably is dangerous, and people probably shouldn’t do it. That isn’t what matters. What matters is that people do it now and will continue to do it and endanger themselves and others no matter how many laws we pass. Why not make them a little safer when they do what they’re going to do anyway? People also argue that handing out condoms encourages sex, but a lot of people are going to have sex anyway, and wearing a condom prevents the spread of disease. Am I so unreasonable suggesting we take human nature into account in the context of DWD and craft solutions that cater to our natural predispositions rather than try to change who we are and what we like to do?

I’m largely joking here, as I enjoy thinking about people taking an advanced DWD class, maybe doing laps around the Nürburgring texting in a Ferrari while an instructor tells you how to improve your DWD lap time. But my suggestion isn’t just funny. It may have the potential to save millions of lives. I’d be pretty psyched if the government decided not to pass more oppressive driving laws and instead gave those around me the skills and training needed to safely do what they’re going to do anyway.

My client’s innocence notwithstanding, some of the folks over at Arizona Child Protective Services, either lacking half a brain or bored with nothing to do, decided to meddle. “We just want to get your client’s side of things,” they said. I found out about the meeting exactly one business day before it was set to happen.

I don’t represent people in dependencies. I attended the meeting with CPS because I never trust the government to respect my clients’ rights. The handful of lawyers I asked about CPS matters said it was unusual for attorneys to go to those meetings, but my innocent client in a den of wolves less than a day after her criminal case went away seemed like a recipe for a set-up. I wanted to be there to make sure they didn’t put words in her mouth that might resurrect the criminal case.

The meeting was conducted by a woman who proclaimed herself the “facilitator.” She used the term “facilitator” with the kind of frequency I commonly encounter when a person using a word doesn’t quite know what it means and thinks repeating it will make him or her appear smart. She also said things like “matter-of-factly” and “irregardlessly.”

My client, my client’s mother, the assigned CPS caseworker, and I were all in attendance. We each filled out little name cards. The back of the cards featured a list of ground rules. The last one was “no blaming or shaming.” The hearing had very specific rules and a set order. Every document, every meeting, every location, and every concept seemed to have an acronym. This was a TDM where a TCN might issue, attended by the CFT at CPS.

The facilitator, who at times did a fair job of pretending to be impartial, generally undertook the role of grand inquisitress with zeal that would make Mike Nifong blush. When she first started attacking my client, no one seemed to notice my comment that it sounded an awful lot to me like some prohibited “blaming or shaming” was taking place. I don’t think the facilitator thought the back of the name cards applied to her.

My client, a wonderful person I believe to be an excellent mother, explained all she had done for her daughter. She had a steady job, a safe home, and clearly cared about both of her children. I was impressed when she explained the lengths she went to in order to get services for that daughter. Her description of the bureaucratic runaround she got dealing with insurance was met with disbelief by the facilitator and the case worker though. They couldn’t imagine anyone would have trouble dealing with the health care system. When I told them I’ve struggled assisting clients to get similar services set up, it was obvious they thought I was lying. Not their flawless, well-oiled machine!

The facilitator clearly didn’t listen to anything my client said. My client said she’d do anything for her kids, and the facilitator responded with “so you’re unwilling and unable to care for them?” “No,” my client said, “I will do anything.” The caseworker and facilitator stared at my client like she just said “take my kids, I don’t care and won’t do anything to help them.” It was like watching two different conversations.

When it suited the facilitator’s preconceptions, she mixed up the facts. She exaggerated the length of CPS’s involvement, the amount of time it took my client to get services for her daughter, the number of days of notice they’d given, and the severity of the alleged conduct underlying the scratched criminal charges. She was wholly incapable of wrapping her head around the fact my client did not assault her daughter. The caseworker claimed she saw choke marks on my client’s daughter, which the facilitator agreed proved my client assaulted her. I found that very strange considering that the alleged assault was supposedly just three punches.

The facilitator kept telling me, “we have a lower standard here.” Neither she nor the caseworker read the police reports. They didn’t interview the other adult who witnessed what happened. They didn’t talk to the prosecutor. They thought lower standard meant no standard. They assumed my client was guilty and that the charges were dropped for some reason having nothing to do with innocence. They wouldn’t listen to anything to the contrary.

When my client admitted she was open to getting help dealing with her daughter’s issues, the facilitator said CPS couldn’t do anything she couldn’t do herself. I asked the facilitator why CPS would need to take the kids if my client could do everything they could, and I got the kind of reaction I used to get when I said a familiar word more than once to my dog; a look hinting at partial understanding, head cocked to one side.

I’ve never been in a room with people who resented me more. Over and over again, they said the same thing: “maybe we could have done X, but you said you had a lawyer.” It was always followed by a spiteful glance. The caseworker claimed she didn’t interview the person who witnessed what happened between my client and her daughter because my client hired a lawyer. To be clear, my client and the witness are two different people. I guess hiring a lawyer stops CPS from figuring out what happened.

After what I can honestly say was the most farcical proceeding I’ve ever witnessed, the facilitator and caseworker decided to take both of my client’s children away. In a meeting they said lawyers never attended (and which most lawyers told me they never attended), CPS decided to take not just the child involved in the criminal case, but the child who had nothing to do with anything. It was based almost entirely on an incident that occurred in front of an independent witness CPS didn’t interview and that was described in a police report CPS didn’t read. I explained the facts and made arguments, but they just didn’t care.

I occasionally appear in front of some bad judges in criminal matters, but I’ve never encountered anything like that. In what might be the most frustrating decision of all, they decided they couldn’t place the children with the other adult who witnessed what happened because “she failed to protect the child” during the alleged abuse. That’s the same alleged abuse that by all accounts but one never happened, and which CPS never properly researched

As my client cried her eyes out, the facilitator handed her a pamphlet entitled “Icebreakers” to help her prepare for when she next gets to see her children. The facilitator described CPS’s programs to my client as if she expected my client to give her a hug and thank her. The facilitator and caseworker then decided that my client’s visitation should be at the discretion of CPS; no set hours, just left to the discretion of some bureaucrats. I was disgusted.

My client is now in the hands of a very capable lawyer who does dependencies. Personally, I’m still in shock. I can’t believe what I saw. I can’t believe CPS can take kids based on nothing, can’t believe the facilitator and the caseworker could do something like that to a family, and can’t believe that any human being could be so willing to make a life-changing decision so callously. It’s the kind of thing I’m going to have nightmares about for years to come.

I think Stoddard ends up looking good to most people. Even I’m a little impressed with the guy. He did his job, refused to apologize for doing what he was trained to do, then took one for the team and followed the judge’s order. I tend to have serious problems with blindly following authority, but I can definitely appreciate how far Stoddard is willing to go to do what he perceives to be his duty. If this mess had been caused by him standing up for rights, not against rights, I’d probably admire him. I was at the press conference where he refused to apologize, and although I doubt he actually wrote the statement he read, he seemed sincere. He may be doing his time in the “Mesa Hilton,” but he almost comes off as being the victim in all of this.

Sheriff Joe also ends up looking pretty good. We’ll never know, but I think Stoddard never would’ve been jailed if he hadn’t gone in on his own. I think the sheriff would’ve been happy letting Stoddard go to work at the superior court, knowing he had been ordered to do jail time. Sheriff Joe appears to have stood behind his man, and he let the courts know he doesn’t feel obligated to obey their orders. His defiance also makes quite the one-two punch when taken in conjunction with the fact he and his buddy, County Attorney Andrew Thomas, just slapped Judge Donahoe and everyone else who ever looked at him funny with a federal racketeering lawsuit. Read more about that here.

When this started, Stoddard and Sheriff Joe probably seemed like the bad guys to most people. They were the bad guys; Stoddard violated a criminal defendant’s fundamental rights in a blatant and outrageous manner, and it clearly wasn’t an accident. Does anyone doubt that important people in the office played a major part in what Stoddard did? Is anyone doubting that what Stoddard did was wrong? Considering that, how did the sheriff and his man go from bad guy to good guy?

There’s a lot of blame to spread around. Judge Donahoe should have held Stoddard in direct criminal contempt instead of indirect civil contempt. Punishing Stoddard and not the sheriff’s office was an even worse idea, as it gave the sheriff the ability to talk the talk while leaving the tough stuff to Stoddard. I stand by my first suggestion: holding the sheriff’s office itself in direct criminal contempt and punishing it with a huge fine would’ve been the smartest thing to do. Order that the fine be paid to the court and be set aside to put on court-sponsored training for sheriff’s deputies on the meaning of the Bill of Rights. Publicly making Stoddard into the obedient soldier and Sheriff Joe into the tough commander isn’t the way to teach either of them a lesson.

Contempt proceedings aside, dismissing the case against Antonio Lozano would have sent the clearest message to overzealous officers in the future. In fact, if Lozano’s case isn’t dismissed, I may lose a little bit of respect for the judiciary. Ordering an apology is a cute way of dealing with a violation of a criminal defendant’s less popular constitutional rights, but it isn’t sufficient. I bet plenty of courts would love to replace the exclusionary rule with a policy of forcing apologies from rights-violating officers, but they haven’t. If the court didn’t believe Lozano’s rights were violated, it wouldn’t have held Stoddard in contempt. Courts always say they value the right to counsel very highly. This would give one court a great opportunity to put its money where its mouth is. Dismiss the case against Lozano.

The fact Lozano seems to have fallen by the wayside may be one of the real tragedies here. How did Joanne Cuccia’s reputation suddenly become the victim? That file is not really hers, it’s Lozano’s. It was his name in the caption, not hers. If copying those documents hurt his defense, he’d be the one bearing the brunt of it. I keep hearing that the sheriff’s office issued a press release lumping Cuccia together with Jason Keller and David DeCosta, but I haven’t seen it. If true, that’s outrageous. However, it’s nothing compared to the potential effect of Stoddard’s actions on Lozano. A lawyer’s reputation and a defendant’s freedom carry vastly different weight in my book. Given what Lozano may have had at stake, why is he playing second fiddle to his lawyer in all of this?

We’ve probably got a long way to go before this is over. Personally, I’m awfully curious about how long Stoddard is going to have to spend in jail before something happens. I keep checking the website for the Court of Appeals, Division One, but I haven’t seen a special action come up in this case. Why is the county attorney waiting? Perhaps more importantly, why is a county attorney still representing Stoddard in the first place? At Stoddard’s press conference, deputy county attorney Tom Liddy was very clear about the fact he represented Stoddard, not the sheriff. How does that work? I can see plenty of potential conflicts of interest just reading the various news stories on this. Did Stoddard sign a waiver of conflict?

Sooner or later, Stoddard’s now-indirect, now-civil contempt (his refusal to follow a court’s coercive order outside the presence of the court), is going to become criminal contempt (punishment). How long will that take? Will appellate review happen first? I’m a little tired of living in a county that also serves as a punchline, but this whole thing sure makes for interesting news. I guess I don’t mind waiting a little bit longer.