Thanks.
The Arizona State Bar is attempting to stop Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas from enforcing illegal immigration laws by investigating him. Top legal ethics experts, including a former State Bar President, former State Bar Chief legal counsel, former Attorney General, and former Chief Justice of the AZ Supreme Court, have found no merit to the investigations.
Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas has asked the Arizona Supreme Court to investigate the Arizona State Bar Association for ethical misconduct involving thwarting illegal immigration enforcement. The State Bar began investigating Thomas and other prosecutors in the County Attorney’s Office after Thomas challenged the Maricopa County Superior Court for deliberately refusing to follow Prop. 100, a voter initiative that passed in 2006 with 78% approval prohibiting bail for illegal immigrants accused of serious crimes. When the Superior Court refused to comply, Thomas successfully got the state legislature and the Arizona Supreme Court to force them to. Angry that Thomas had taken on the courts and won, some retired judges lobbied the State Bar to “do something” about Thomas.
Thomas asked several experts in legal ethics to review the bar complaints that suddenly emerged against him. All of the experts concluded that none of the complaints had any merit, and that the State Bar had engaged in misconduct. These experts are: Thomas Zlaket, former Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court (politically liberal); Jack La Sota, former Attorney General of Arizona; Ernest Calderon, former State Bar President (a Democrat); Geoffrey Hazard, former Yale Law School professor and perhaps the nation’s leading expert on legal ethics; and Michael Alan Schwartz, former chief counsel at the State Bar of Michigan.
The chief legal counsel of the Arizona State Bar, Robert Van Wyck, has demanded privileged material from the County Attorney’s Office and says he will turn it over to adverse parties involved in current or prior litigation against the County Attorney’s Office. He has been coordinating and working with an alternative tabloid newspaper, the Phoenix New Times, which detests Thomas.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio supports Thomas and said that one of his attorneys has also been the target of a frivolous bar investigation related to illegal immigration enforcement. Arpaio will criminally investigate the State Bar if necessary.
The State Bar is under the jurisdiction of the Arizona Supreme Court. It is despicable that the State Bar, an entity whose job is to uphold the law, is doing the opposite. The judges who requested that the State Bar investigate Thomas are attempting to control the Executive Branch, which the prosecutors’ office is part of. This is an unconstitutional abuse of the separation of powers. Seventy-eight percent of Arizonans want Proposition 100 enforced, and a majority also want illegal immigration laws enforced. For the State Bar to obstruct the will of the voters by investigating the man responsible for upholding the law is unlawful. And without the rule of law, society is chaos.
The other alarming aspect of this investigation is its attempt to curtail free speech. The local judiciary and the State Bar were upset with Thomas for criticizing their obstruction of Proposition 100. After one of Thomas’s attorneys wrote an article defending him in the newspaper, the State Bar began investigating him over the article (it comes as no surprise that they recently dismissed that investigation). Free speech is one of our most cherished fundamental rights, there is a reason it’s the First Amendment. I didn’t clear this article with the State Bar before publishing it, because it’s within my right to free speech. So maybe I’ll be the target of an investigation.
To read the entire news release, click [1] here. Visit [2] illegalimmigrationjournal.com for updated news on illegal immigration, and sign up for the free weekly newsletter. Rachel Alexander is a Deputy County Attorney with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.
Rachel Alexander and her brother Andrew are co-Editors of Intellectual Conservative. Rachel practices law in Phoenix, Arizona and blogs for GOPUSA.com.
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jackal1994 said,
I recently had a friend go through this in New Jersey. He is of Albanian descent and his (then) fiancee was born in Albania. Well, apparently she forgot to renew her green-card.
Both her parents are U.S. citizens, and she has no criminal record, and even has several credit cards and a car payment. Docile hardworking immigrants are the ONLY ones caught up in these sweeps! Why? They’re trackable. Criminals are invisible.
Additionally my friend told the judge if they deport her he would simply join her in Albania marry her & bring her back.
This is simply a system of distortion. Firstly, the process is dragged out to give the victim’s family a lot of time to try to snag an attorney. Second, it’s hinted at (especially by attorneys) that the system is recoverable, that she/he can be released from prison and simply have her green card renewed.
My friend said he was lucky in that he only spent $500 on a lawyer. This guy said many families spend tens of thousands of dollars.
After about 120 days in prison they deported her.
And he did exactly what he said, he went to Albania, married her and brought her back.
It’s obvious why lawyers would rather have THIS system in place.
99% of lawyers are scumbags.
May 29, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Squiggy said,
P.S. I think you’re wrong about lawyers - it’s higher than 99%.
May 30, 2008 at 3:53 am
Squiggy said,
I left out that very important qualifier.
sigh
May 30, 2008 at 3:55 am
jackal1994 said,
There must be some reason these lawyers are battling to keep keep the status quo (i.e. the way things were b4 prop 100). ALL these lawyers can’t have illegal immigrant nannys/groundskeepers.
Lawyers are basically mercenary’s. They never get off their ass unless there is money in it for them. They have to be making money off these illegals somehow.
I wouldn’t doubt if it’s something very similar to what my friend went through in New Jersey.
May 30, 2008 at 9:33 am
DcFather said,
I’ll believe a politician is sincere about taking on the special interest groups when he/she puts the Bar Associations at the top of the list, otherwise it’s more of the same or worse, i.e. “decisions” and “rulings” and “orders” based on money for lawyers.
Though I’m not familiar with just how corrupt immigration law has become, I’m painfully aware of how corrupt the biggest cash cow, family law, has become, and what terrible harm it has wrought upon children including my own, just so some of the sleaziest among us can bill hundreds of dollars per hour in the perpetuation of the big sham nowadays passed off as “justice”.
May 31, 2008 at 6:31 am