Deputy Released from Jail

Read the lat­est episode in the on-going Deputy Stoddard soap opera. Regardless of what each side says, it seems to me that Deputy Stoddard just might be a high pro­file pawn in an ongo­ing inter­nal polit­i­cal war inside Maricopa County.

Originally posted on AZCentral.com.

Adam Stoddard is out of jail.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Detention Officer was released from the Lower Buckeye Jail Thursday morn­ing after an Arizona Court of Appeals rul­ing that allowed Stoddard to leave cus­tody pend­ing the out­come of an appeal his attor­ney filed.

The Appeals Court rul­ing noted that grant­ing the stay should not be inter­preted as any rul­ing on the mer­its of the appeal. The court will con­sider the appeal peti­tion on Jan. 5.

Stoddard had been in jail since Dec. 1, after he refused an order from Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe to make a pub­lic apol­ogy to a defense attor­ney. It was revealed in the Appeals Court hear­ing on Wednesday that he was held in the Lower Buckeye Jail.

Donahoe’s order fol­lowed a hear­ing on the pro­pri­ety of Stoddard’s deci­sion to remove doc­u­ments from defense attor­ney Joanne Cuccia’s file dur­ing an October sen­tenc­ing hear­ing for Antonio Solis Lozano.

Stoddard’s attor­ney, Tom Liddy, said despite the deten­tion officer’s release, the mat­ter still had a long way to go before resolution.

“This ordeal is not over,” Liddy said. “This should not have happened.”

Stoddard’s case has since become a sym­bol of the fric­tion between the Sheriff’s Office and the courts.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio again referred to those ongo­ing polit­i­cal bat­tles and praised Stoddard for his deci­sion to report to cus­tody — a deci­sion that was entirely up to the 25-year-old deten­tion officer.

“I hate to call our offi­cer a polit­i­cal pris­oner, but that’s the way I feel because of the con­duct of the judge in this mat­ter,” Arpaio said. “I have a feel­ing the judge may not like the sheriff.”

Arpaio said Stoddard received spe­cial treat­ment afforded to any law-enforcement offi­cer while he was in the Lower Buckeye Jail, includ­ing being held in closed cus­tody, and that he was not forced to wear the sheriff’s trade­mark pink under­wear because Stoddard had not com­mit­ted a crime.

Donahoe found Stoddard in civil contempt.

Since Stoddard has been in the sheriff’s cus­tody, Superior Courts in down­town Phoenix were dis­rupted for one day by a spate of deputies call­ing in sick and a bomb threat — nei­ther of which were related to Donahoe’s rul­ing, accord­ing to the Sheriff’s Office.

The judge pre­sid­ing over Lozano’s sen­tenc­ing hear­ing has had trou­ble get­ting deputies to bring in-custody inmates to her court­room on time, if at all, which led to her can­cel­ing Lozano’s sen­tenc­ing hear­ing sched­uled for Monday. That case is pend­ing reas­sign­ment to another judge.

Arpaio said sheriff’s offi­cials were look­ing into Judge Lisa Flores’ com­plaints in an attempt to address them.

Capt. Bill Vanausdal, who over­sees the court secu­rity unit, said judges can vacate cal­en­dars when sheriff’s per­son­nel are a few min­utes late bring­ing inmates to court and that there was no coör­di­nated effort on behalf of the Sheriff’s Office to keep Flores from receiv­ing inmates.

Donahoe’s deci­sion was also men­tioned in a crim­i­nal com­plaint County Attorney Andrew Thomas filed against the judge on Wednesday as evi­dence of Donahoe’s bias, though there were no charges asso­ci­ated with the judge’s order that Stoddard report to jail until he apologized.

Lozano, 26, was in the mid­dle of a sen­tenc­ing hear­ing for aggra­vated assault on Oct. 19 when sur­veil­lance footage shows Stoddard move behind Lozano. The footage shows Stoddard look­ing down at a doc­u­ment stick­ing out of a file before pulling it out for a closer look. Stoddard tes­ti­fied that he saw the words “going to,” “steal” and “money” grouped together on the doc­u­ment and became concerned.

The footage of Stoddard’s action became a sta­ple on local and national newscasts.