We all knew that Andrew Thomas was a wing nut when he was elected to the office of Maricopa County Attorney, but much like George Bush himself, few of thought he would be this bad. Unfortunately, County Attorney is a pretty powerful position and not one that you want occupied by someone with an ideological agenda. He has the power to ruin lives and he has shown that he has no scruples about doing just that.
This article from the New Times outlines the lengths that Thomas went to prosecute a 16-year old kid for something he obviously did not do. If you saw the 20/20 report, then you saw the smirking Thomas who was more than happy to put the kid on the sex offenders list for showing his friends Playboy. The only thing that saved him was a judge's sage advice to appeal the ruling to his parole officer (who knew they had that kind of power?).
First, you don't ruin a kids life for something so trivial. Second, if you populate the sex offenders list with non-sex offenders, it not only ruins lives, but dilutes the meaning of this list.
The worst part about Thomas is that he seems to do things in spite having all manner of facts and expert advice to the contrary.
Today, we have this article from the East Valley Tribune. Thomas is pushing for faster death penalty trials. He also recently wanted his prosecutors to stop plea bargaining for certain crimes. Of course, he did not want to find the $50 million extra dollars to pay for it.
Here we have Thomas wanting to force defense attorneys to take more death penalty cases. He basically says they are lazy and cannot understand why the prosecution and defence lawyers cannot take the same numbers of cases. Could it be that the prosecution has the police to investigate (just watch Law and Order sometime, Andrew). It is also pointed out that Thomas has never prosecuted a case himself.
I understand wanting swift justice, especially in violent cases where innocent people are hurt and killed, but civilized societies do not rush people to the electric chair without proper safe guards. I am of the "It is better to not put to death a hundred people that deserve it than to mistakenly put one innocent person to death." If the prosecution does its job properly, the outcome will be mostly right. Our system works pretty well, but when you speed things up without safe guards you not only risk putting innocent people to death, you also risk over-turning death sentences on appeal. Here is more this topic...
I have my eye on you Mr. Thomas. I will be updating my Thomas watch regularly.
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andrew thomas is the most frightening american political figure today. a resident of maricopa county since 2001, i was born and raised in st louis missouri. i was forced to witness the political ascension of john ashcroft, and considered mr ashcroft to be as bad as a "public servant" could get. andrew thomas makes ashcroft look like stokely carmichal. i am certain that thomas harbors ambitious delusions of political grandeur and hope that blogs like this one can get the word out on this lunatic and, at worst, confine thomas to the desert.
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