By Chris Caraveo
Twitter: @ChrisCaraveo31

The 2020 primary election is less than a two weeks away, and several candidates are vying to lead the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.

On the Republican side, voters only have current County Attorney Allister Adel on the ballot. She is running for her first full term, having replaced former head attorney Bill Montgomery after he resigned mid-term for a spot on the Arizona Supreme Court.

On the Democrat side, there’s Julie Gunnigle, Robert McWhirter and Will Knight. All three have previous criminal justice experience and have similar views on how to revamp the MCAO, should they advance to November’s general election. Previous candidate Ryan Tait bowed out earlier this year, with Mr. Tait’s campaign informing the Daily Independent that he stopped running due to the coronavirus pandemic. Tamika Wooten stated on Facebook June 16 that she was unable to officially get her name printed on the ballot, as she was 18 signatures short. That means voters will have to write her in.

The Daily Independent asked several questions of each candidate primed to be listed on the ballot ahead of next month’s primary. They range from experience and goals to how to address recidivism and police use of force incidents.

Early voting is underway, with county and state officials sending out Permanent Early Voting List ballots. Visit the Maricopa County Recorder's website and Arizona Secretary of State website for more information.

Why are you running and what are your goals for running?

Allister Adel: As the first female Maricopa County Attorney, it is an honor to serve the community in a way that allows me to accomplish meaningful change. I have great respect for the responsibility that comes with this position and the impact it has on the members of this community.

My priority as Maricopa County Attorney is to do justice.  I lead a group of talented men and women who seek justice for victims and work tirelessly to ensure that the rule of law is applied fairly. My vision of a better MCAO is built on protecting the rights of victims and holding criminals accountable, ensuring operational efficiencies and process improvements that are grounded in evidence-based practices, and developing collaborative relationships with the courts, the sheriff’s office, partners in county government, first responders, the legislature, and those in our community who seek to better our criminal justice system.

Robert McWhirter: To protect the public from crime and respect the tax-payer by implementing true criminal justice reform.

Julie Gunnigle: My talents are best used as the first democratic county attorney in Maricopa county in 40 years. So we’re running and gosh, it’s such a winnable race. This is like one of those strange positions. I’m not convinced should actually be partisan. There’s not a democratic way of prosecuting a homicide versus a republican way of doing so. Nevertheless, you and I have seen how this office has wielded its power down at the capitol and has become hyper-partisanized.

Will Knight: I am running for Maricopa County Attorney because I believe that we as a society are at a crossroads. We have a historic opportunity to restore our nation’s founding principles of justice, democracy, and liberty against the present reality of mass incarceration, jail profiteering, and growing inequality. In a time of polarization, Democrats and Republicans are coming together on the issue of criminal justice reform. For example, last year Right on Crime, a conservative justice reform lobby, helped get a modest reform bill passed in the Republican-controlled Legislature, but then-County Attorney Bill Montgomery used his office to pressure the governor into vetoing it — a decision that even the staunchly conservative Arizona Republic columnist Robert Robb called a “mistake.”

I believe that the county attorney, as a representative of “the people” in our courts, should promote justice by exercising discretion in the best interests of those people, respecting both the victims of crimes and the accused. This powerful office impacts not only the community’s relationship with law enforcement and the prison system, but also its economic well-being. Therefore, my goals in office will be (1) to prosecute responsibly, (2) to revive victim and community advocacy, and (3) to increase transparency.

In order to prosecute responsibly, a county attorney must prioritize violent and dangerous crime; seek fair, but fiscally responsible sentences that avoid excessive punishment; calculate and publish the anticipated cost of incarceration in every case where the office seeks to sentence; consider the collateral consequences of charging decisions and criminal convictions, both for the accused and for the community; implement meaningful diversion programs accessible regardless of socioeconomic status; and implement the recommendations of the bipartisan Task Force on Fair Justice for All on court-ordered fines, fees, and cash bail.

In order to revive victim and community advocacy, we need to work with law enforcement to bridge the growing gap in trust with communities of color, particularly immigrant communities; create policies and practices that protect victims and witnesses, including use of victim and witness cooperation visas; enforce victim’s rights providing for meaningful notice and opportunity to be heard; increase staff and funding for meaningful outreach, counseling, and long-term support for victims after a case concludes; increase access to legal resources for domestic violence victims; and implement a strong Conviction Integrity Unit to offer redress past harms.

Finally, increasing transparency will require an independent review of forensic practices with the goal of establishing scientific validity; structural changes to address the danger of implicit bias, such as removing racial and ethnic markers from evidence submittals and background investigations; partnering with social science researchers to evaluate, publish, and respond to the justice system’s disparate impact on communities of color; hosting regular forums with state agencies, law enforcement, and community members to listen to their constructive input on our performance; giving the public access to our “Brady List” (documenting officers considered unreliable witnesses in court); and complying with Arizona’s public record laws, both substantially and in a timely manner.

Are there any past experiences that make you a good fit for the job?

Adel: Current Maricopa County Attorney since Oct. 3, 2019. Served as deputy county attorney during Bill Montgomery’s time leading the office. Chief administrative law judge for ADOT. General counsel for Arizona Department of Child Safety.

McWhirter: I have been a practicing criminal lawyer for over 30 years, a published author on criminal law and the constitution, and have international management experience in criminal justice reform.

Gunnigle: Law school Notre Dame, Cook County attorney. All of the five democratic challengers for this position have taken various degrees, different criminal justice reform stances. I think I’m the only campaign that’s focused on the root of the issue. We didn’t get to a place of overincarceration overnight. We got to it because of conflicts of interest. We got there because the private prison industry funds elections. We need someone who’s willing to take on those deeper systemic issues.

My past experience prosecuting politicians, especially when they stole public funds or engaged in conflicts of interest, is not just uniquely appealing in this political environment, where voters are very concerned on a federal and a state level about corruption, but it’s also uniquely equipped to fix the problems in this office. The other thing that’s differentiating my campaign from others is felony prosecutorial experience. Because I think it matters. Not prosecuting as an intern, not working as a municipal prosecutor. I don’t want, whichever Democrat ends up taking this office, their very first prosecution ever to be as the elected official of the fourth largest county attorney’s office in the country. While I’m running primarily against defense attorneys, I think that matters, and I think that matters to the public too.

As a solo, one of the things I do is I donate over 500 hours a year to birth, breastfeeding and women’s reproductive justice cases. I’ve got a track record for standing for women’s autonomy. While that’s not normally an issue in a county attorney’s race, it very much is in 2020 in Maricopa County. We have a trigger law; we never repealed our felony abortion law in Arizona. We also never repealed our misdemeanor contraceptives statute, which criminalizes even the advertisement of contraceptives. Meaning, that if Roe v Wade were to fall overnight, we would have criminalization of our most basic reproductive rights, and the county attorney would be the person who has the most control over everyone’s reproductive destiny. It’s something we’re spending a lot of times educating voters on about why now more than ever we need a county attorney that shares our values.

Knight: I am the son of a first-generation Latina immigrant and an American expat who met and married in Colombia. After my biological father fell into debt with the drug cartels he worked for, my mother was kidnapped and held for ransom along with a baby daughter and a son — me — on the way. She narrowly escaped with her family, and my father was sentenced to federal prison in the United States.

From these experiences, I learned what it was to lose a close family member to the criminal justice system, while also being the victim of a crime that needed to be remedied. Later, I learned how a single encounter with law enforcement can alter the course of a life, after I was arrested for underage drinking at age 18, resulting in a misdemeanor record that almost ended my legal career before it began. All of these experiences shaped my ambition to become a prosecutor, as well as my perception of the value of a justice system that is responsive to the needs of individual victims and the community as a whole.

With that ambition, I worked hard while attending Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. I served as editor on the Arizona State Law Journal, publishing peer-reviewed articles on prosecutorial ethics. I graduated summa cum laude, second in my class, and was awarded the prestigious Truman Young Fellowship in 2012, giving me hands-on experience at prosecuting agencies including the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. After graduation, I began my career in complex commercial litigation at some of the top firms in Arizona. While working, I fought alongside Shawn Aiken and other advocates to bring marriage equality to LGBTQ+ Arizonans, and I worked pro bono for the Arizona Justice Project to exonerate those who had been wrongfully convicted. Motivated by these experiences and the desire to make a meaningful difference, I left private practice to serve as a Maricopa County Public Defender, in the white-collar division.

Is there anything with the office right now that you think needs improvement? What have you done or will you do to create this change?

Adel: As Maricopa County Attorney, I immediately sought to promote and hire character-driven professionals. This bi-partisan and diverse group of individuals, who are driven by their passion to do right by the residents of Maricopa County, have helped to create significant change in the organization and shift prosecution by the office to focus on the offender and not just the offense. This philosophical change will have a significant impact on the criminal justice system in Maricopa County. I am creating advisory boards to ensure those in the community have a voice and direct communication with this office. I have also focused resources to ensure transparency through a more responsive and robust public records request process.

McWhirter: The entire orientation of the office needs to change away from mass incarceration to smart justice reform.  The current mass incarceration model makes no one safer from crime and abuses the taxpayer.  The criminalization of addiction and mental health problems is an expensive disgrace.  The lack of attention to the disparate treatment of persons of color and the poor in our criminal justice system is unjust.

Ms. Adel has given scant, if any, attention to the need for change.

Gunnigle: In no particular order, I don’t believe this office does enough with financial crime and public corruption. I don’t believe this office has done enough when it comes to human trafficking. I think this office has become too much when it comes to drug enforcement and crimes. In particular, this office has been one of the leading forces behind our incarceration crisis. We’re the fifth highest incarcerator in the country. A lot of that is driven from drug crime and drug-motivated crime. This office hasn’t put in place even the most basic evidence-based reforms that would lead people to treatment rather than to prison. I’m running for that reason. I’m running because I don’t believe this office has done enough when it comes to officer accountability and police use of force cases. I believe that we need an independent unit that can fairly and impartially evaluate those cases because it’s troubling to me that Phoenix with the highest rate of officer-involved shooting and officer use of force cases, out of all of those, this office didn’t see fit to prosecute a single one of them in the last year. Out of the last two years the only prosecuted one was the Brailsford case. I don’t think we’ve done enough there. I’m troubled by the number of wrongful convictions. We know that it’s a best practice to have something like a conviction integrity unit in the office. We have one in Pima County, it works great. We’re fighting for that reform. Last and most importantly, we’ve taken an aggressive stance about ending this office’s request for cash bail and bond. As we don’t believe anyone should be held for no other reason than poverty.

Knight: The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has a history of overcharging — the prosecutorial practice of actively seeking the highest possible charges to force defendants to engage in plea bargaining rather than pursue their right to a jury trial. Simple drug possession might be charged as intent to distribute, even when the small amounts were clearly intended for personal use. Similarly, minor shoplifting cases are upgraded to “organized retail theft” charges, merely because an item was concealed in a purse or backpack.

Our unelected county attorney has refused to acknowledge this matter, instead asking that others point out instances to her while continuing the so-called “Plead to the Lead” policy (imposed by County Attorney Andrew Thomas in 2005), which incentivizes prosecutors to threaten defendants with the harshest possible sentences.

Charging is a practice that directly signals to our community how justice is (or is not) being pursued. That responsibility requires a responsible county attorney to prioritize prosecuting violent and dangerous crimes, rather than pursuing minor and non-violent crimes as a way to fill beds in our jails and prisons — and the bank accounts of the private detention industry. Prosecutors should be required to consider the consequences of each charging decision, including its impacts on the community and the accused. Current practices amount to a targeting of our most vulnerable populations: the poor, the mentally ill, and people struggling with addiction. Instead, our policy should be to seek fair and fiscally responsible sentences with an eye to meaningful diversion programs.

Some people are questioning the ability of the MCAO to criminalize an officer’s actions in an officer-involved shooting, such as in the Tempe case with Officer Jaen and Anthony Arce. Is it fair for people to be criticizing these decisions? How difficult is it to criminalize an officer’s actions in an OIS?

 Adel: This office has updated and implemented a new critical incident response protocol. Examples of incidents include an officer-involved shooting, a death that occurs while a person is being arrested or in custody, or an incident, such as a traffic collision, where serious physical injury or death occurs. When these situations arise, it is the responsibility of this office to review and analyze the facts and evidence submitted to us by law enforcement. We review the facts as an independent charging agency to ensure that that the due process rights of any potential criminal defendants, well as the rights of any potential victims, are protected.

When I was appointed to this position last fall, I committed to the residents of this county to enhance and ensure transparency in this office. Understandably, this case is of great significance to this community.

We did not rush to judgement in the review of this case. The process undertaken by this office in reviewing the matter was extensive. Over the last several months, numerous investigators, prosecutors and other employees read transcripts, viewed officer body-worn camera footage, examined photos, and analyzed a number of other pieces of evidence.

We also sought an expert analysis of the evidence by an impartial, third-party. This report was another factor I considered when determining the charging decision.

 McWhirter: I have issued a press release on the Arce case. This is not a democrat vs. republican issue. This 14 year-old child and his family did not receive justice. Any decision involving possible charges for an officer involved shooting should be an open and transparent with public input in the decision.

Gunnigle: It’s always difficult to look at a case from the outside with just what’s reported publicly. We know those decisions are being made with potentially more information than what the public has. In that case in particular, there was a video. We’ve issued a press release on the Antonio Arce case and I believe the county attorney can and should take tougher stance when it comes to cases like that. Especially cases where unarmed minors are shot in the back.

Instead of looking at it through a partisan lens, it’s a better move to look at it through a process. We know there are systemic problems by virtue of the structure of criminal justice and how we’ve built it. What you’re asking people to do in that case is you’re asking prosecutors who day in and day out have to rely on officers to prove out their cases in court. And then you’re asking those same prosecutors who’ve built a career relying on officers to turn around and independently evaluate those officers’ conduct. When I look at that I see a conflict of interest where you can’t get true objectivity. I think what the public truly demands is an objective view of all these cases. And that’s what’s been so troubling, that these decisions are made without any civilian review process. They’re made in a box that’s fundamentally not transparent – and her press conference didn’t give people the answers they want, which is why? How did you reach this conclusion? And if we can fix that process, and provide true independence, we’re going to end up with a lot better results and greater transparency and accountability.

Knight: No allegation of police brutality is “partisan.” It is a matter of law and the constitutional principle that no one is above the law. As Maricopa County Attorney, I would welcome an open dialogue between our law enforcement and the community. It is a cornerstone of my platform to prosecute to the full extent of the law any officer using excessive force or acting outside the scope of their duties.

One of the big issues in the county is decreasing recidivism and re-entry. Are there any programs that you think would benefit the county that aren’t being used already?

Adel: One of my first priorities in office was to remove barriers to diversion. Beginning January 1, 2020, I directed MCAO to no longer collect the $640 case fee, established by my predecessor, as a requirement to participating in diversion programs. I am currently working on two initiatives at the Arizona State Legislature to expand diversion. The first bill will expand funding to address programs for defendants who are lacking financial resources. The second bill removes current statutory language that prevents defendants who have committed a specific crime from being disqualified from diversion opportunities.

The agency’s new Felony Diversion Program has created six treatment tracks for offenders. Four of these tracks are for individuals who have underlying issues with substance abuse and two are focused on critical thinking and life skills. All six tracks are evidence-based and the diversion participant is placed in a track based on their individual needs and not their offense.

McWhirter: Yes, many programs and models exist. As County Attorney I will prioritize the creation of the stakeholders to attend to this issues. One of the three prongs of making all of us safer from crime, in addition of enforcement and prevention, is attending to re-entry issues to decline the recidivism rate. 

Gunnigle: Part of our platform is two-fold. It’s trying to divert and deflect those who can be diverted and deflected from the criminal justice system. Let’s face it, that’s honestly the best approach to a lot of these cases. Especially involving drugs, especially involving addiction and mental illness. If we can have treatment options in place that treat addiction and mental illness rather than criminalize it, that is our first and best move. In terms of our prison population, making sure that it’s not a revolving door by increasing those programs that are available upon reentry is also a huge priority and prerogative of this office. A lot of that has to happen on a legislative level. But the biggest way this office interacts with reentry, our community supervision and probation tails. One of the big issues I see is too many people are sent back to prison for technical violation of probation or community supervision. That leads to a constant process of recidivism and the revolving door that’s become our prison. Are there programs in place? Heck yes. There’s a multitude of programs that I intend to build on the diversion side. And then we need probation reform on the reentry side. There’s already programs on the ground that are working that we can expand and build from. SAGE allows persons who are convicted for certain drug offenses to get out early if they agree to a treatment and reentry program. I sat through the orientation. The material that was provided was excellent. What was shocking to me is there are hundreds of people who are being released every week and there were only a dozen in that room. That’s the real opportunity.

Knight: The scope of services offered by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office is abysmal, and this failure is costly not only to people caught up in the system but to the public as a whole. We can make people safer while saving millions of enforcement dollars if we address recidivism and re-entry with both a proactive approach (avoid incarcerating those accused of minor offenses) and a reactive approach (offer former inmates assistance with their re-entry to the community, preventing a fallback into lawbreaking).

It is vital that we expand access to pretrial diversion programs. This creates opportunities for people accused of an offense to avoid the collateral consequences of a conviction, which can be detrimental to future employment, housing, citizenship, and education, and can lead to increases in recidivism. These programs require fees and often payment of restitution, which is vital to the concept of restorative justice.

There are currently only two such options in the county: a drug diversion program administered by the Treatment Assessment Screening Center (TASC), and the Felony Pretrial Intervention Program (FPIP) for non-drug-related felonies. Please note that under my administration, we will not be prosecuting addiction. Instead, I will work with the Legislature and the Board of Supervisors to offer substance use treatment programs as well as educational and job training programs. Accordingly, we will only need drug diversion programs when an individual commits a serious offense that causes actual loss in the community, and the offense was motivated by untreated substance use disorder. As for FPIP, I have represented more than 1,000 individuals charged with felony offenses in Maricopa County Superior Court, and I have gotten FPIP once. Nobody in that office knows what it is or how to use it.

We need to educate prosecutors about available public resources, create a broad scope of programs with the discretion vested in us by Rule 38, Ariz. R. Crim. P., and tailor diversion programs to the individual, with a primacy on education and jobs training above every else. It is important that the county attorney take an active approach in creating these programs and require that prosecutors take a proactive approach in making them accessible.

Are there any current crimes that are being prosecuted that should be prosecuted differently? I.e. DUIs, drug possession, etc?

Adel: Our commitment to increasing the use of diversion represents a different way of prosecuting certain cases. Rather than singling out an entire category of cases, our approach is to explore emerging options that were previously unavailable or impractical for prosecutors. For example, technological improvements will soon make electronic home detention and alcohol monitoring a more feasible alternative to incarceration in appropriate DUI cases. Our willingness to embrace different approaches to prosecution will, however, be balanced with the reality that the traditional methods of prosecution will continue to be employed when necessary to protect the community and deliver justice to victims.

McWhirter: Nearly everything from a review of death penalty cases to low level drug possession.  All this review must be based on what makes us safer from crime, what respects the taxpayers and victims, and what creates good social policy.

Gunnigle: We need to rethink the way we do all drug prosecutions. It’s quite literally two-thirds of the case load of this office. And when you add drug-motivated crime, you’re looking at almost 90% of the cases this office handles. If we can get addiction right, we can really reduce the incarcerated population. Which is not only the right thing to do, it’s the economically best thing to do for Arizona. I think there are some cases that just straight up shouldn’t be prosecuted at all. We were the first campaign to come out and say that low-level marijuana offenses are no longer a priority of this office and will not be prosecuted. It’s a day one policy decision.

Knight: Arizona is the only state where first-time possession of marijuana can be charged as a felony. In 2018, of the 663,000 marijuana-related arrests in the United States, more than 608,000 were for marijuana possession only. In November 2019 alone, 3,975 of our fellow Arizonans were placed in prison for simple drug possession. County Attorney Adel has stated that drug possession alone sometimes requires prison sentences. She has claimed that in charging drug possession arrests, the office attempts to “look at treating the offender, not the offense.” However, Adel has clearly failed to look at the individuals her office places in jail.

According to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, minorities and the poor are highly more likely to be arrested for simple marijuana offenses. Nationally, an African American is 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person, despite studies showing that both groups use marijuana at similar rates.

The economic costs of charging simple marijuana possession are also incredibly high. Low estimates put the government’s cost for such an arrest between $1,000 and $5,000. Nationally, this translates to $600 million to $3 billion spent on incarcerating marijuana users, money that could be invested in diversion programs, raising teacher pay, and creating housing for our homeless population.^[1] Adel has failed to account for any of this, much less to offer a meaningful response. While in office, I would refuse to charge simple marijuana possession, focusing instead on diversion programs.