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Maricopa County Attorney candidates @AllisterAdel & @JulieGunnigle will debate in a couple hrs. Looking forward to it. For county residents, this race is far more important than any other on the ballot. (Thread) https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/16/maricopa-county-attorney-candidates-allister-adel-julie-gunnigle-debate/3671231001/
The Democrats, who are being swept into office in an anti-Trump tide, are enthused that Gunnigle has a D next to her name. Dems point to the R next to Adel's name and say she's worse.
Problematic for me as a voter, however, is Gunnigle's involvement in the wrongful prosecution of Annabel Melongo -- a woman of color, an immigrant and a blogger -- while Gunnigle was a jr. prosecutor in Cook County, Illinois.
Despite Gunnigle's current support of an end to cash bail, Melongo was imprisoned for 18 months "on a $300,000 bond . . . and at one point had to undergo a hysterectomy while handcuffed to an operating table." For context, please see full story, here: https://theappeal.org/maricopa-county-attorney-candidate-julie-gunnigle-annabel-melongo/
Melongo represented herself and prevailed, but at great cost to herself personally. She ultimately filed suit, and Cook County paid nearly $1 million in taxpayers' money to settle.
The court record in the suit can be accessed through the federal docket at PACER and through the RECAP/Court Listener site, at courtlistener(dot)com
Of particular interest in 1:13-cv-04924 is a deposition Gunnigle gave in the case on April 23, 2018, document #295-4, Exhibit 40. I've read the document. It's free through Court Listener.
Gunnigle's experience? She testifies that after law school, she was at the prosecutor's office in Elkhart Co., Indiana "for approximately two years" working "everything from traffic to the low level felonies."
After Elkhart, Gunnigle says she was in solo practice approximately from 2008 to 2009 in which she did "small business law, patent and trademark." She testifies that she did no criminal work during this period as a solo practitioner.
Gunnigle says she worked at the Cook County State Attorneys Office, from Sept/Nov 2009 to July 2011. She says she was a "part time state's attorney in the financial crimes division," and "only worked 25 or 30 hours" -- presumably, per week.
She also testifies that she worked "Less than a full time schedule."
Later, she was a law prof at Arizona Summit Law School, which is now defunct. She had her own private practice from 2015 on, she says.
Asked in the depo "What sort of cases do you currently work on?" Gunnigle replied, "Midwifery law, education law, a little bit of patent and trademark, and some small business law."
Nothing wrong with this. But is it enough experience to head up an office of "more than 1000 full-time employees, including attorneys, investigators, paralegals, victim advocates and support staff"? (Quote from https://www.maricopacountyattorney.org/277/About )
Debatable point, I reckon. Folks will say she has had additional experience since 2018. They may even argue that her lack of certain kinds of experience is a plus.
In the 2018 depo transcript, Gunnigle says it's her first time being deposed. Scores of times, she says that she can't remember significant details .
Regarding Melongo, Gunnigle notes that she was "second chair" on the case, meaning that she was "working under the direction of another." Still, she defends Melongo's prosecution.
Gunnigle has made a lot of statements as a politician about what her office would and would not do and charge. Prosecutors have discretion there. But in a revealing portion of the transcript, Gunnigle makes some chilling statements.
See, Melongo allegedly had recorded a conversation with a public official without revealing that she was doing so and was prosecuted under a state statute that was subsequently found to be unconstitutional.
According to the court record, Melongo posted the recording to a website she maintained. There was an exception to the statute that arguably allowed her to make such recordings.
In the depo, Gunnigle is asked: "As a policy matter, do you think it's a good idea to prosecute a citizen for recording a conversation with a government employee about government business?"
A lawyer objects to the question, but Gunnigle is allowed to answer: "When that person is breaking the law, they should be prosecuted."
She's again asked, "As a policy matter, do you think that government transparency is a factor that should be taken into account in deciding whether to charge a person with a crime for recording a conversation with a public employee about government business?"
Her reply: "I don't make policy, but when someone is breaking the law, they should be prosecuted."
This is exactly the sort of thing ex-CA Bill Montgomery would say...But a prosecutor is not a robot, and a CA's office should not be a machine that cranks out convictions. Hopefully, reporters will question Gunnigle on these issues at the debate.
