Maricopa County 5 - Practicing What You Enforce Is Only Fair
Robert Wechsler
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-Retired, City Ethics
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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-Retired, City Ethics
---