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A bit about Rachel Mitchell
Since her career became the subject of national attention, two failures have been repeatedly mentioned: In 2003, Mitchell’s office was criticized after it declined to prosecute a man for abusing his quadriplegic wife. (The woman went on to write a harrowing memoir about her experience.) In 2011, Mitchell granted a plea deal of only six months to a Jehovah’s Witness who was found guilty of assaulting a teenaged boy. What’s been largely left out of this narrative are the wide-ranging institutional failures of Maricopa County when it has come to reporting, investigating, and prosecuting sexual assault, particularly when reported in Latinx and immigrant communities.
Mitchell has worked under several different bosses, and the stark failures of the bureaucracies are never the fault of a single person. That said, her career trajectory raises significant questions about her role in advocating for victims and correcting the problems that plagued these offices.
Mitchell was promoted to lead the sex crimes unit in 2005, unseating a longstanding and well-liked prosecutor. The person who promoted her, Andrew Thomas, was then only a week into his tenure. A close ally of Joe Arpaio, America’s most racist sheriff, Thomas used his office to open criminal investigations against his political opponents, especially those who questioned his immigration policies. He was disbarred in 2011 for, among other things, incompetence, erroneously pursuing civil and criminal cases without probable cause and, in one case, forcing a sheriff to swear to a false affidavit.
Mitchell’s next boss, Bill Montgomery, has held the office since a special election in 2010. He’s been giving glowing endorsements of Mitchell to the press ahead of her appearance in Washington, DC. As Joe Arpaio’s enforcer, Montgomery aided in the rounding up of immigrants at work sites, charging them with identity fraud, a practice that came to require federal intervention. This year, Montgomery got directly involved in negotiating a plea deal for two women associated with the Patriot Movement who burglarized a mosque. He also quite recently threatened police departments with financial consequences should they not comply with rules he invented about when and under what circumstances they should comply with public records requests.
Mitchell has worked under several different bosses, and the stark failures of the bureaucracies are never the fault of a single person. That said, her career trajectory raises significant questions about her role in advocating for victims and correcting the problems that plagued these offices.
Mitchell was promoted to lead the sex crimes unit in 2005, unseating a longstanding and well-liked prosecutor. The person who promoted her, Andrew Thomas, was then only a week into his tenure. A close ally of Joe Arpaio, America’s most racist sheriff, Thomas used his office to open criminal investigations against his political opponents, especially those who questioned his immigration policies. He was disbarred in 2011 for, among other things, incompetence, erroneously pursuing civil and criminal cases without probable cause and, in one case, forcing a sheriff to swear to a false affidavit.
Mitchell’s next boss, Bill Montgomery, has held the office since a special election in 2010. He’s been giving glowing endorsements of Mitchell to the press ahead of her appearance in Washington, DC. As Joe Arpaio’s enforcer, Montgomery aided in the rounding up of immigrants at work sites, charging them with identity fraud, a practice that came to require federal intervention. This year, Montgomery got directly involved in negotiating a plea deal for two women associated with the Patriot Movement who burglarized a mosque. He also quite recently threatened police departments with financial consequences should they not comply with rules he invented about when and under what circumstances they should comply with public records requests.
https://jezebel.com/forgive-me-if-i-dont-trust-the-woman-prosecutor-intervi-1829355701