Thomas and Aubuchon should have been investigated years ago

While I welcome the investigation that the Arizona State Bar has made against former Maricopa County DA Andrew Thomas and his partners-in-crime Lisa Aubuchon and Rachel Alexander, nonetheless, I cannot help but note that the bar and the media in Arizona (and especially in Phoenix) were all-too-happy to paint these people as heroes as long as they were abusing people who did not have political connections. In other words, I am saying that as long as the DA's office went after people like Courtney Bisbee who were not politically wired into the establishment, the media (other than the Phoenix New Times) simply went along with whatever the authorities wanted them to believe and ignored the abuse.

Like Michael Nifong, who went to the North Carolina Bar Woodshed four years ago for his role in the Duke Lacrosse Case, Thomas and Aubuchon don't have a chance to keep their law licenses. (I believe that Alexander, who played a minor role, might get off with a reprimand.) Yet, I also believe that these people should have been in the dock long ago before Thomas made the strategic error of becoming Sheriff Joe Arpaio's errand boy.

For example, when Supervisors Don Stapley and Mary Rose Wilcox were indicted on multiple felonies, and Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe was charged with bribery and other crimes, there also was Susan Schuerman. She had the bad fortune of being Stapley's secretary, and Thomas and Arpaio wanted her to give the DA more ammunition, and what followed was utterly shameful. As reporter Laurie Roberts writes:

Schuerman, 57, has worked for the county for 25 years – 17 as Supervisor Don Stapley's secretary.

She came under the steely gaze of the Sheriff's Office in December 2008, when she returned from a dentist appointment to find detectives waiting for her. Stapley had just been served with a 118-count indictment charging him with failing to publicly disclose loans, real-estate dealings and other assets.

“They take me into this conference room and hand me a grand jury subpoena and say we want to talk to you about the Stapley matter,” she tells me. “I didn't even know what the Stapley matter was.”

Over the next few weeks, Schuerman says Sheriff Joe Arpaio's right-hand man, Chief Deputy Dave Hendershott, hounded her for information, trying to scare her into turning on Stapley. She refused. One, because she says she didn't have any dirt on her boss and two, because she saw this for what it was -- an orchestrated campaign to bring down Stapley and anyone else who dared cross the sheriff.

“Hendershott told me I would be sorry,” she says, “and I was.”

Deputies followed her to lunch. Undercover cops watched her east Phoenix home, leaving her daughter in tears and her neighbors wondering what she'd done.

Then in February 2009, word suddenly “leaked” out to the media that Schuerman was under investigation for using county resources to conduct Stapley's private business and later, bribery. Her office was searched and she was told to leave the building, to go outside where the media pack was waiting.

Declaring her a suspect was an ingenious way to turn up the heat. Thomas blocked the county from giving her an attorney, noting that taxpayers don't provide lawyers to government employees suspected of crimes.

And so Schuerman was on her own.

She had no money for an attorney. She'd raised three kids on a secretary's salary. She'd lived on the financial edge since 2005 when her daughter suffered a stroke on her 21st birthday, one that left her paralyzed and dependent on her mother.

Schuerman, too, was paralyzed -- with fear. That she'd lose her job and her health benefits – all the more precious because she has Crohn's Disease. That she'd be taken to jail and then what would happen to her daughter, Jenifer?

“I wanted to die,” she says. “I didn't know what to do.

This simply is sick. Sick. For all of his identity with the Evangelical Right, other people are nothing but pawns for Thomas, people that he uses to help his own political career, and if innocent people are destroyed in the meantime, well, that is "collateral damage" that comes when someone is "rooting out corruption."

What do the Republicans have to say? Their own words expose their perfidy:

Just this week, the chairman of the Maricopa County Republican Party decried the ethics hearing that begins Monday.

“Andy was trying to do the right thing by rooting out corruption,” Rob Haney said.

Right. Unfortunately, the real corruption is found in the DA's office (which STILL is trying to destroy the Jacobson family) and with Joe "Pink Underwear" Arpaio. When there is no accountability with people who have the power to arrest and prosecute, there always will abuse. Always. No exceptions.

Michael Rasmussen's Trial is Postponed Until May

The latest news is that Michael Rasmussen's trial will be postponed until May 16. This is due to a private family matter with his attorney.

The bad news is that Mr. Rasmussen remains in jail for the next 2-1/2 months. However, the good news is that the defense gets to strengthen its case.

One thing I have learned in my experience in blogging on these kinds of cases is that bad cases tend to grow worse over time, and that if the police and prosecutors have built charges on sandy ground, the ground turns into quicksand. That is the situation with this one, as the prosecution has had two years to "get its story straight," and so far every new bit of information helps, not hurts, Mr. Rasmussen.

Anyway, stay tuned. In the meantime, there is the Jacobson case in Arizona, as well as the wrongful imprisonment of Courtney Bisbee, and both of them will be receiving some attention. Furthermore, there is the upcoming trial of James Combs in Catoosa County, which will feature some of the same faces that polluted the courthouse during Tonya Craft's trial.

So, there is much work to be done.

Protecting the Worst Among Us: How the U.S. Supreme Court Rewards Prosecutorial Misconduct

Camille Tilley, the mother of wrongfully-convicted Courtney Bisbee, sent me the link to a stunning article that has appeared in the Los Angeles Times about how the U.S. Supreme Court protects prosecutors who lie and deliberatly hide exculpatory evidence. If you want to know why people like Chris Arnt and Len Gregor are willing to lie openly in court, hide evidence, suborn perjury, and fabricate documents during a trial, this article lays it out for you.

Perhaps the most chilling paragraph in this excellent story is found here:

Last year, the court heard the case of two Iowa prosecutors who were sued for framing two black teenagers for the murder of a security guard even though witnesses had pointed to a suspect who was white. In asking for the claim to be tossed out, the Iowa prosecutors asserted "there is no freestanding constitutional right not to be framed." (Emphasis mine)

I want readers to sit back and contemplate what the Iowa prosecutors are saying: Because the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly say that prosecutors are not to frame innocent people, therefore, prosecutors are permitted to do so. (However, I suspect that many of those people would claim that even though the Constitution does not specifically say that women have an untrammeled "right" to an abortion, nonetheless the Constitution guarantees that "right.")

While the argument these people used was extreme, nonetheless I believe that it reflects the mentality of prosecutors around the country. Because they know that they won't face any legal consequences for their misdeeds, they feel free to do whatever they want, even if they know they are lying.

Furthermore, keep in mind that the consequences of prosecutorial misconduct are horrific. People are wrongfully sent to prison. Families are destroyed. People are executed for crimes they did not commit.

This sorry state of affairs continues because the Law-and-Order Conservatives believe that prosecutors should be able to conduct their operations without any worries at all, and that no one should be permitted to impede their actions, even if they are pursuing innocent people. Furthermore, the same people who believe that a business should be destroyed because an employee acted wrongfully refuse to hold that same standard to the agents of the state. The LAT article notes:

The high court has taken a dim view of suing prosecutors, and in Thompson's case, the court's conservatives led by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. questioned whether the district attorney's office should be held responsible for the misdeeds of a few prosecutors. (Emphasis mine)

Would Alito hold to that same standard if Wal-Mart were being sued? I doubt it, and his words send a very clear message to prosecutors everywhere: Lie, lie, and lie some more. The Supreme Court has your backs.

I would like to say that a free society cannot withstand this kind of assault, but Americans long ago threw away their freedoms. Instead, we have a surveillance-police state that empowers some of the worst people among us.

Last May, a Catoosa County jury acquitted Tonya Craft of child molestation charges, and jurors even remarked afterward that Chris Arnt had openly lied to them during closing arguments. We witnessed Joal and Sarah Henke committing perjury, unqualified prosecution witnesses testifying, the fabrication of documents, and more perjury from Sandra Lamb and Sherri Wilson.

In other words, in order to bring criminal charges against Ms. Craft, Arnt and Len Gregor committed crimes, and helped others commit crimes along the way. Jurors and others in the courtroom witnessed criminal behavior, yet not one person who lied and broke the law faced any sanctions.

Arnt, Gregor, Tim Deal, and "judge" brian outhouse are still on the job. No one who lied faced any punishment, and no one will be punished for what they did.

Why? They knew that they were perfectly secure in their lawbreaking because the authorities will not do anything about it. For that matter, the authorities WERE the lawbreakers. Let me put it another way, one that perhaps puts all of this into perspective:

Lawbreaking by government authorities is legal because it is the "Law of the Land." The U.S. Supreme Court has said so.

Maricopa County "Justice" and the Wrongful Conviction of Courtney Bisbee

Maricopa County, Arizona, has proven to be a cesspool of justice and the situation only looks to get worse. From the predations of Sheriff Joe "Pink Underwear" Arpaio to the contrived and false charges against the son of Carola Jacobson, the "justice" apparatus of that place proves to be something that makes the courtroom of Roland Friesler look to be paragon of goodness.

There are many issues I want to cover in the future about Maricopa County, including the continuing investigations into the clearly-criminal activity of former Maricopa County DA Andrew Thomas and his partner-in-crime Lisa Aubuchon. These two miscreants, who were politically allied with Arpaio, attempted to frame innocent people of crimes for political purposes, but the law might (I emphasize might) be catching up with them.

Yet, for all of the turmoil, an innocent woman named Courtney Bisbee quietly serves her prison time in Arizona, convicted by one of Thomas' henchmen in a case that every legal expert who has examined it calls a farce. She stands convicted of molesting a young teenager, although the teenager's brother has since said in a sworn affidavit that his family concocted the whole scheme for lawsuit purposes. (That also has been the motivation behind the accusations against the Jacobson boy.)

The Bisbee story is kept alive by her mother, Camille Tilley, who has proven to be quite formidable as a force against the injustice perpetrated by Thomas' people. I would urge readers to read this lengthy story in the Phoenix New Times that goes into detail about the case, and how the false accusations came about.

The other day, our pastor preached about the lies that abound in our present society, and while he mentioned the lies told by government agents, I doubt most people in the congregation that day really understood how pervasive the official culture of lying really is in government at all levels in the USA. This blog deals with only a smidgen of the lies, and I see things only getting worse.

Yet, there are some small victories. Tonya Craft was acquitted, Eric Echols is a free man, and Carola Jacobson so far has been successful in chewing up the prosecutorial apparatus in Phoenix. There is much more, and I hope that in the near future, we can say that Courtney also is a free woman.

I will be doing more on this case and on what is happening in Phoenix. For now, read about Courtney Bisbee, and then realize this is the hell where our "leaders" want to take us. And don't forget that Arizona voters almost made Thomas the state's attorney general. There is much work to be done.