Maricopa County 5 - Practicing What You Enforce Is Only Fair
Wed, 2009-09-30 07:05
A week ago I wrote a blog
post about preferential treatment, emphasizing
that the way to distinguish preferential treatment from ordinary
decisions and transactions,
where someone is commonly preferred over others, is by whether the treatment
is fair and
whether the regular process is followed.Fairness is the principal issue in a preferential treatment question involving the Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio's December 2008 investigation of county supervisor Don Stapley. It appears that the sheriff followed the regular process (although there is a question about following the process in his arrest of Stapley this month). But soon after the December indictment, the Phoenix New Times ran an article detailing the sheriff's own omissions on his financial disclosure forms, the same offense he had charged Stapley with.
The newspaper approached the sheriff with its evidence. The response was: "Sheriff Arpaio says he has and is complying with regulations regarding Arizona financial disclosure statements." No investigation.
The newspaper approached the county attorney with its evidence. No response.
And as far as I can tell, no investigation was called for by the sheriff (although he is being investigated by outside authorities for other reasons).
When a sheriff ignores public evidence of his own failure to follow the same laws he is enforcing -- a failure that brought down New York governor Eliot Spitzer, who wasn't even a law enforcement officer anymore -- then he is saying that he is above the law. And the investigations of someone who cares nothing about fairness undermine the public trust that law enforcers act fairly and without preferential treatment.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research, City Ethics
rwechsler@cityethics.org
203-230-2548
Joel Fox (not verified) says:
Robert,
While I agree with the general premise of your position, your particular example is flawed.
The New Times is notoriously anti-Arpaio and has actively written nothing but negative articles about him and MCSO for over 15 years. In fact, this accusation of improper financial disclosure forms was first published by them over 5 years ago. This most recent article simply rehashes old news.
The truth is that there is nothing improper about Arpaio's financial disclosure forms, now or ever, and no one is interested in investigating a fraudulent complaint that has already been examined. The New Times has no obligation to print the truth, especially about a public figure, and they regularly print lies about the Sheriff.
There is such a thing as un-preferential treatment, too, especially by the media.
Robert Wechsler says:
In addition, according to an article in the Arizona Republic, Don Stapley filed a motion in his case making exactly the same accusation, and he received exactly the same response from Sheriff Arpaio. Stapley's former US Attorney lawyer should have a bit more credibility than a newspaper whose publishers were arrested by Sheriff Arpaio.
Attacking the person (ad hominem), either the newspaper or Mr. Stapley, as Mr. Arpaio did, rather than the content of the accusation is not an adequate response.
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