HMMM? Arizona politics???
How it started:
Allister Adel finally takes responsibility for her disastrous run as county attorney. (Republican)
But her resignation as the county’s top prosecutor comes late – and with a price.
March 21, 2022
How it is going:
Former Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel dead at 45
Apr 30, 2022
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey issued his condolences on Twitter, calling the death a
“tragic” incident
How and why did dhe just drop dead at 45?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/allister-adel-finally-takes-responsibility-213225786.html
Allister Adel finally takes responsibility for her disastrous run as county attorney
Laurie Roberts, Arizona Republic
Arizona Republic
March 21, 2022
In the end, Maricopa County Allister Adel got it right.
But her resignation as the county’s top prosecutor comes late – and with a price.
Civil rights protesters unfairly charged as street gang members. Drunken drivers and domestic abusers allowed to escape punishment due to botched prosecutions.
The nation’s third largest prosecutorial agency left to drift for lack of competent leadership and courts left to sort out whether defendants got a fair shake in light of Adel’s mounting problems (and how much taxpayers will have to pay for those problems).
Victims left to wonder as well.
And a question – an unfair one, to be sure – that will dog the next women who seeks to lead the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office: Will she be equipped to handle the job, voters will inevitably wonder.
What a shame that it has come to this.
Was Allister Adel ever really up to the job?
Adel was appointed to the job in 2019 to replace Bill Montgomery, becoming the first woman to lead the Maricopa County Attorney's Office. At the time, her qualifications seemed thin. But the Republican-dominated Board of Supervisors appeared more focused on selecting someone who could win an election than someone who could actually run a major law enforcement agency.
She went on to win in 2020. But it quickly became apparent that she was in over her head. Prosecutors went after 15 social justice protesters with a vengeance, charging them as members of a criminal street gang in order to exact a harsher penalty.
By February 2021, amid calls for her resignation, Adel dropped all charges against the protesters, blaming her staff for bungling the case. It would not be the last time that the buck bypassed our troubled top prosecutor.
By August, Adel had secretly checked herself into a treatment facility, to deal with alcohol abuse, an eating disorder and general anxiety but insisted, upon her release, that she was up to the job.
She wasn’t and probably never had been. But she clung fiercely to the job.
She rejected calls to resign, blamed her staff
She ignored Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone’s late-summer counsel that she take a leave of absence to deal with her problems. She assured Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates in November that everything was fine, despite staffers reporting slurred speech, long absences and questions about her general demeanor.
By February, it was clear to everyone – including all five of her criminal division chiefs – that Adel had to go.
Everyone, that is, but Adel who continued to reside in Delusionland, where she was just fine and anyone who said differently was the problem.
Of course, it was inevitable that it would all come crashing down.
On March 14, The Arizona Republic’s Robert Anglen reported that up to 180 drunken drivers, hit-and-run drivers and abusers would go unpunished because prosecutors forgot to file charges before the one-year statute of limitations expired.
Adel followed her usual course and blamed her staff, prompting even Gov. Doug Ducey last Tuesday to scold her for that appalling lack of leadership.
Adel’s response was to issue a statement last Wednesday claiming she took “full responsibility”, as if five sentences emailed out by your PR staff constitutes anything close to that.
Finally, Adel took full responsibility
Finally, on Monday, Adel took full responsibility. She is resigning as of Friday.
“Voters supported me in November 2020 as the first woman elected to be Maricopa County Attorney and it is an honor I will always cherish,” she said, in a prepared statement. “I am proud of the many accomplishments of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office during my tenure, including policies that seek justice in a fair and equitable manner, hold violent offenders accountable, protect the rights of crime victims, and keep families safe.”
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