Client/Attorney privilege? Legal work product? Since it wasn’t returned on demand, simple theft? What law was broken, if any?

Does that officer routinely ’screen’ documents coming into the courtroom, as he claims? All of them? If so, hopefully the procedure for that requires the document owners permission?

#39 SusanK

Re: “creative” judging. If I remember right, this is a civil contempt, not criminal…

Well, crap. If snooping through the defense lawyers papers doesn’t constitute a criminal act, then it’s no wonder the deputy isn’t exactly shivering in his shoes.

And I don’t believe for a minute that the content of those papers should be subject to inspection by law enforcement. It’s one thing to screen people for weapons, it’s another to suggest that the written content of papers is subject to government approval. That’s about as dumb as searching the hard drive of someone’s laptop at the airport as if it falls under the authority to search for weapons.

If there’s any rule that law enforcement proves repeatedly, its that given an inch, they will take a mile.

How the hell does a piece of paper represent a security risk outside of soaking it in explosives?

#22 AJs

On a bit of a different take – does a judge really have the authority to order someone to hold a press conference and make an apology?

This is a good point. Personally, I believe the justice system should be limited in the type of penalties they can assign, but most people seem to like the “creativity” judges sometimes exhibit. The justice system is not a re-education camp. To the extent that it encourages rehabilitation, no one is served by forcing convicts to mindlessly spew forth government mandated dogma.

Not only should a judge not be able to force someone to apologize, they shouldn’t have the power to require celebrities convicted of drug crimes to make public service announcements. Forcing someone to profess a particular state approved viewpoint is what thought police do. That’s fine for totalitarian police states, but hypocritical to the point of being delusional for a country that proclaims itself to be the “home of the free”.

“I’m sorry deputy, I have to lock you up for contempt. I’ve designated your home as cellblock A-14 and you are required to stay on the premises for the duration of your sentence.”

Perhaps he could go so far as to making the entire state a jail annex?

I can’t think of another case where a judge has ordered someone jailed for contempt and the police department has refused to carry out the order. I’m not sure what would happen next. A duel? Arm wrestling?

Unless I am missing something, he’s a state judge in Maricopa county, not a Maricopa county judge. As for the legal relationship between him and Sheriff Joe, the technical term is that Sheriff Joe is “his bitch”. The next step would be to find Sheriff Joe in contempt, and call in the state police to arrest him. I would expect the state police to file obstruction of justice charges on anyone else in the Sheriff’s office stupid enough to resist them (although I’m saying that from Texas, where the Texas Rangers would likely be the ones executing the order. AZ may not have any real law men anymore.)

For those playing the home game, Stoddard isn’t going to apologize. We’ll see what happens next. His full statement:

I am Maricopa County Detention Officer Adam Stoddard. I work in the Court Security Division of the Sheriff’s Office and have been with the Sheriff’s Office for five years.

Recently, Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe ordered me to hold a press conference to publicly apologize for doing the job I have been trained to do.

Part of my job in providing security to the court is to inspect documents brought into the courtroom. On October 19th, I saw a document that I had not yet screened, and that raised security concerns. I retrieved that document in plain sight and had court personnel copy it to preserve it as evidence in case it was a security breach.

It was a split second decision and I do not regret my actions.

Judge Donahoe has ordered me to feel something I do not and say something I cannot. I cannot apologize for putting court safety first.

The judge therefore puts me in a position where I must lie or go to jail. And I will not lie.

What a jerk.

You are correct about the role of the sheriff. In the state of Indiana, there is also a state sheriff who performs duties for the legislature there.

Part of the problem (which isn’t a problem in most places) is that there are vast swaths of land for which there is no other law enforcement. I grew up in a small town of 8000, and we had our own police force. Our city was about 2 square miles total. The rest of the couple hundred square miles in the county had no police force outside of the sheriff and his deputies.

Contrast that with an area like Nashville where we have a city/county government and a police force with jurisdiction throughout the county (except in a few autonomous cities which have their own PDs). Here, the sheriff’s office as a law-enforcement agency is redundant, and we rarely see them driving around. But they still perform the same duties for the courts and such.

I don’t know about Phoenix, but it looks like they would be redundant there as a law enforcement agency. Even so, we know that Joe likes to do a lot of law enforcement around the town due to some of his famous escapades.