A County Attorney At War with the County: The Conflicts Fly in Maricopa County

The Council on Governmental Ethics Laws has great instincts for meeting where the ethics problems are greatest. Last year it met in Chicago. This year it will be Maricopa County, AZ (the Phoenix area).

See update below
A couple months ago, I wrote about the Maricopa County sheriff's self-promotion that appears to rise to the level of a conflict of interest. Now the county supervisors and the county attorney (with the county sheriff at his side) are at war (and the county judiciary has also been implicated). The conflicts are rampant.

What's this all about? According to an article this week in the East Valley Tribune, it started with the county attorney bringing an indictment against a county supervisor with 118 criminal counts alleging he failed to list business and real estate interests on financial disclosure statements he is required to file as an elected official. What should be criminal about not filing a complete disclosure statement?

According to an article in the Phoenix New Times, seven days after the board of supervisors voted to investigate possible conflicts of the county attorney relating to this indictment, the county attorney, working with the county sheriff I wrote about in January, subpoenaed the board of supervisors as part of a grand jury investigation into possible crimes by county officials with respect to an approved $340 million county court building.

According to the article, the county attorney's office had provided extensive legal assistance to the county during the preparation of the court building proposal. On this basis, the county filed motions to kick the county attorney off the investigation and quash the grand jury subpoena. Here's what the judge had to say:

The issue is the ethical propriety of the Board's attorney seeking documents as part of a grand jury investigation from the attorney's client. For example, as noted by the State, the State is requesting production of all contracts related to the court tower. ... The subpoena duces tecum also requires production of all correspondence and emails related to the court tower. According to the Board's motion, the Maricopa County Attorney gave the Board legal advice regarding those very contracts including having attended executive sessions of the Board of Supervisors, [and] approved all procurements and contracts ... The correspondence and email request.is not limited to nonconfidential communications; therefore, it arguably includes confidential correspondence between the Board and its former attorney, the Maricopa County Attorney. In that the Maricopa County Attorney's Office was counsel for the Board and gave the Board legal advice regarding the court tower, this Court finds that the Maricopa County Attorney's Office has a conflict of interest that disqualifies it from conducting an investigation of its client on the very topic on which it gave legal advice to its client.

That's pretty clear. The solution is to have a special prosecutor, without a conflict, appointed. That seems reasonable. So how did the county attorney and the county sheriff respond? Here's their press release:

Grand Jury investigation of $340,000,000 Court Tower thwarted

We are very concerned that the Superior Court, by disregarding the rulings of higher courts, has blocked an important grand-jury investigation of itself and its own employees. This is surely a conflict of interest by the court itself if there ever was one. This ruling has been appealed to the same higher courts that have already upheld such investigations and prosecutions.

Important questions have arisen regarding the funding and contracts for the new $340 million-dollar court tower. This ruling suggests county and court officials believe they don't have to answer these questions. We believe they should and the public has a right to know.

Sheriff Arpaio adds, "I want the taxpayers of Maricopa County to know that these unjust actions against the County Attorney will not deter the Sheriff's Office investigation and we will move forward with a vigorous investigation of the court tower as well as our other corruption cases."

To the county attorney, everyone but him is a criminal and has a conflict of interest, even the county judge. He and his buddy are all good, and everyone else is thwarting  and unjust and corrupt. A special prosecutor would likely be evil, too.

Also full of spite, the board of supervisors, according to the New Times article, responded to the indictment of one of its members by taking away the county attorney's civil litigation department.

As I have said, there is no more difficult position, with respect to conflicts, than a local government attorney. But when the local government attorney can bring indictments against his own clients, the problem goes well beyond conflicts. When the same county attorney is politically involved, it is disastrous.

What does this war among politicians say to the people of Maricopa County? That justice gives way to politics. That conflicts are so rampant in Maricopa County that everything is personal and nothing is done in the public interest.

Update: According to an editorial in the Arizona Republic this week, the county attorney has turned the two controversial criminal cases over to another county. However, he still insists that he had no conflict bringing criminal actions against people his office counseled.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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