Andrew Thomas, Arizona's one-man budget wrecking machine.
Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas is a big reason Arizona cannot afford to educate your children. His policies consume large portions of the state budget, lower tax receipts, and scare visitors (and residents) from coming to Arizona.
Thomas is incarcerating people at twice the rate they are moving here
I've repeatedly heard that Arizona is one of the fastest growing states in the United States. What I haven't heard is that Arizona is growing its population of prisoners at double the rate it is growing its taxpayers. If you believe that most people aren't felons, you would be right. If you believe that you are one of those people—well, that's today. You don' t need to be Einstein to see that turning people into felons at twice the rate they are moving here puts you on a hit list to becoming one.
I don't know about you, but no one told me about the statistic of the prison population increasing by nine residents every day that the courts are open for business. No one shouts that the driving force behind this alarming rate of incarceration (and its resulting tax burden) is Trial-By-Prosecutor plea agreements. I guess it's not news that a politically motivated county prosecutor, not a judge, has built an assembly line into prison — turning people from taxpayers to tax recipients in wholesale fashion — but it was news to me.
Between 2000 and 2008, while Arizona's prison population grew by an astonishing 42%, Maricopa County was home to almost two-thirds of Arizona's population. Proponents will tell you that the huge growth in population (that you now know was 25%) is responsible for our prison's cracking at the seams with people.
Separating this number between Arizonians sentenced when Rick Romley was county attorney (2000-2004) and under the rein of Andrew Thomas (2005-2008) shows you some of Thomas' work. Romley was the toughest prosecutor in Arizona history, so how has Thomas topped him? I give you answers!
I show through actual examples of real people that there is good reason former prosecutor, Rick Romley—himself a tough Republican conservative—asked voters to vote for the Democratic challenger to Andrew Thomas because of Thomas' consistent abuse of power.
I saw how Thomas manufactures violent criminals from ordinary citizens.
Using mandatory minimum sentencing laws, not to punish hardened career criminals, but to terrorize residents, Thomas coerces guilty pleas from ordinary citizens. With mandatory minimum sentencing used as a weapon, he converts residents into violent criminals with fear; the facts, guilt, or innocence have little to do with it. By manufacturing felony crimes, he ruins lives, preys upon the people, and uses the statistics he creates as proof that an epidemic of violent crime exists—building a political resume for himself as a protector of the people.
With little more than the 6 o'clock news for information, busy residents are oblivious to the danger they face. Thomas works in secrecy using Trial-By-Prosecutor plea agreements.
Away from the public's eye and free of a jury's ire, he is able to easily turn residents into his victims. I show examples of real people who were victimized by Thomas' draconian policies.
With a plea contract in hand, judges are impotent to protect you. With the legalization of Trial-By-Prosecutor, Thomas can run roughshod through the county's judicial system unabated by either judges or juries. Because this all happens in secret, the public has no clue these abuses exist — until its too late and someone they love becomes the next victim to be sacrificed. You'll meet some of these people up close and personal.
Judges and juries have been taken out of the equation.
"How many felony trials in Superior Court does it take to manufacture 9 sentenced felons every day who go to prison?" I asked. Better yet, how often would I expect to be called to serve on a Superior Court jury? That's as quantifiable a fact as any to use for measuring how many of these 9 individuals is getting a trial.
You can do the math, but if you're only getting a jury summons to Superior Court every couple of years, you can estimate that it is less than 1 in 9 of those people went to prison because you, or someone like you, voted them guilty of some crime that a judge sentenced them to prison for committing.
Most county residents have no clue that they face a mandatory minimum sentence or a reduced jury size of 8—sometimes even 6—jurors when they cross Thomas' path. The man is so secretive about his activities that many people aren't even sure who he is.
Residents sense nothing out of the ordinary about their judicial system because reducing the jury panel by one-third, and relying on Trial-By-Prosecutor is the magic number that ensures people aren't called to jury duty so often they begin to get suspicious! I show you how its done.
Happy Hour is a feeding frenzy in Maricopa County.
While some people would cheer at this prospect, maybe even they would agree that it isn't right for the government to prey on the people or to keep secrets about it. There are a number of ways to lie to the public, one is by what you "don't say" when you're a public official.
If one were to take a poll from county residents who imbibe at one of the thousands of local restaurants, licensed by the government to serve alcohol, likely the fatherest thing from their mind is that they risk becoming violent felons who will face a mandatory minimum of 7 or more years in prison. They don't think about this because they don't know about it. No one uses the public's tax dollars to warn them. If its true that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, why keep it a secret?
Well, common sense says that "Happy Hour" crowds would thin considerably were local residents to know the danger they face, so Thomas makes it a point not to tell people about his policies with any more detail than is necessary. As residents drive home from "Happy Hour," they do so ignorant that 3 to 30 years in prison is one unfortunate stroke of poor luck away!
In my book you'll meet people going to prison who were not even at fault in a DUI accident (where no one was injured) that are headed to prison. You'll meet working people who once had jobs and paid taxes,people who never intentionally preyed on anyone (the historic definition of a criminal is someone who intentionally preys on someone else), and people who did prey on other people. You'll meet veterans who should be receiving mental help, rather than prison stripes. And people who really did commit violent crimes, who should have went to prison, but ended up walking free every day in the sheriff's work programs.
County residents do not know that when Andrew Thomas says "criminals will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law" on television that he is targeting them, their families, and the people they love. They don't understand that he has created a machine, that more resembles an assembly line in an automobile factory more than it does crime and punishment's thorough investigations depicted on television.
The county's sheriff and prosecutor are unabashed extremists.
Today, I live in a different world. Now, I know that Sheriff Joe Arpaio and County Attorney Andrew Thomas are the two most controversial lawmen in the United States today.
They both reside in Maricopa County, Arizona, where their respective departments are fraught with lawsuits and investigations of wrongdoing—all at taxpayer expense.
Yet they remain defiant that their ultra-rightwing form of Western justice is what the American people want.
Thomas has charged so many residents with crimes that carry capital punishment (death sentences) that it drained the defense resources for the entire state of Arizona within his first two years in office! He single-handedly drove Arizona to the 3rd most dangerous place to live with his flagrant abuse of the law he is sworn to uphold.
Accidental Felons provides you a sampling of the people who are today's violent criminals. Not the single individual paraded on TV, but some of the thousands you aren't supposed to know about. People who could be your friends, your neighbors, or you!
