Last fall, Maricopa County Attorney
Andrew Thomas announced that he was thinking of running for Arizona attorney general in November's general elections.
He seemed a shoo-in.
But since then, he has become the subject of an FBI investigation into possible abuse of power, a state Bar investigation into possible unethical behavior, and two potential lawsuits related to prosecutions of county officials.
His high-profile criminal cases against two county supervisors and a sitting Superior Court judge have collapsed. And he has been indirectly rebuked by a ranking official in the U.S. Department of Justice for wrongly implying at a news conference that the federal government would take over wide-ranging investigations into allegations of county government corruption.
Those asking where it all went wrong may well find the answer in a major strategic blunder by Thomas: filing a federal civil-racketeering suit against a host of county officials and private attorneys that proved to be the undoing of everything else.
The suit named a long list of alleged conspirators, including county management, the county Board of Supervisors, four Superior Court judges and two attorneys in private practice.
In legal circles, it was ridiculed from its inception for its failure to meet basic legal standards like court deadlines and definitions. One opposing attorney derisively quoted "Humpty Dumpty" in a motion to dismiss the case. It had not even passed through the initial stages of court procedure when Thomas and his co-plaintiff, Maricopa
County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, withdrew it March 11.
The racketeering case may have been flawed from the start because it runs afoul of a basic legal concept: You can't sue someone in civil court, then press criminal charges against them, without raising eyebrows.
That collision of intentions prompted a Superior Court judge hearing one of the criminal cases to rule that Thomas had a conflict of interest. The state Bar agreed and has since asked the Arizona Supreme Court to investigate Thomas' ethics.
Thomas won't say if he still plans to run for attorney general. But he has a tough decision to make in the face of all that has transpired since September.
No comments:
Post a Comment