August 19, 2010 - The 'Skinny'We're far removed from the strange political/legal circus that was underway in Maricopa County while Republican Andrew Thomas was county attorney, so we're not even going to try to get into the specifics of Thomas' crusade against judges and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors—other than to say it appears to have been an extraordinary miscarriage of justice.
New details emerged last week when new Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, who was appointed to take over the job after Thomas resigned to run for Arizona attorney general, held a press conference to reveal how bad the case against the judges was.
Romley released a massive packet of information related to the grand-jury investigation into whether Maricopa County supervisors and judges broke the law in a matter related to the construction of a new courthouse.
We don't have the space to go into the details, but we'd encourage you to read what The Arizona Republic and Phoenix New Times have reported, because it reveals a shocking abuse of prosecutorial power by Thomas, who is now locked in a primary fight with fellow Republican Tom Horne.
Even conservatives like the Republic's Robert Robb and Espresso Pundit's Greg Patterson are saying that Thomas lacks the judgment to be attorney general. As Espresso Pundit put it: "I find myself in a unique position. There are plenty of people who I find charming
and qualified who are not with me on the issues—I don't vote for them. And there are plenty of people who are with me on the issues who are complete jerks—I usually hold my nose and vote for them.
"But this is the only time that I have found a nice guy who is bright, isn't overtly corrupt, understands the issues and is generally with me, but whose judgment is so bad that I would vote for any other candidate."
While Thomas is trying to spin his way out of it, it sure looks to us like he's the kind of guy who relentlessly pursues his political enemies by using his power to put someone behind bars—even on the flimsiest of grounds.
Having seen what emerged last week, it's hardly surprising that Sheila Polk, the Yavapai county attorney that Thomas tried to persuade to pick up his bad cases, had this to say about him:
"I am conservative and passionately believe in limited government, not the totalitarianism that is spreading before my eyes.
The actions of (Maricopa County Sheriff Joe) Arpaio and Thomas are a disservice to the hundreds of dedicated men and women who work in their offices and a threat to the entire criminal-justice system."
Thomas is not the sort of guy who ought to be the state's top prosecutor.
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