The Daily Agenda: Prosecutors square off
First-term county attorney accused of ethical violations ... Public records at the center of the squabble ... Affordable housing, one way or another.
A years-long legal battle between the county’s top prosecutor and the office’s former chief criminal deputy shows no signs of nearing an end, despite both sides appearing in court Thursday to make their case.
At the center of the dispute are records that the ex-chief, David Berkman, says could potentially expose an ethical violation by Pima County Attorney Laura Conover.
Berkman, who left the Pima County Attorney’s Office at the start of Conover’s term in 2021, filed a special action against the office later that year, seeking records related to a civil lawsuit filed against the county by Louis Taylor.
Taylor spent 42 years in prison for the 1970 Pioneer Hotel fire, before making a deal with former Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall’s office in 2013, in which he agreed to plead no contest in exchange for the office setting aside his original conviction and giving him credit for time served.
Taylor sued Pima County and Tucson two years later, saying racism and poor training on the part of police and prosecutors led to his wrongful conviction.
In the months before Conover took office, the county attorney’s office’s ethics committee decided she had a conflict of interest in Taylor’s civil case because of comments she made while campaigning, according to Berkman’s complaint. Conover had cited the handling of Taylor’s case as an inspiration for her work in law and political run, saying she followed the case in the 1990s and did a little research for his 2005 parole hearing when she was a law student.
Conover was informed of the conflict before taking office in January and another attorney was substituted in to represent Pima County in the civil lawsuit, but Conover later denied receiving notice.
But Berkman, the self-proclaimed nemesis of Conover, doesn’t believe her involvement in the case ended there, and he said in his complaint that he suspects public records in the civil suit will prove him right.
Berkman said he’s requested specific emails, texts, letters and other documents that will show Conover did not fully step away from the case, but her office won’t hand them over.
Berkman believes Conover and another employee in her office may have told Taylor’s attorney that they were representing the county and “may have claimed the authority to negotiate a settlement,” according to his complaint.
In April 2022, Pima County Superior Court Judge Douglas Metcalf ordered Conover’s office to produce some of the records, but provided extensions, as they proved difficult to locate.
And in the months that followed, there was no shortage of happenings in the Taylor case. Last August, Conover announced that her office’s Conviction and Sentencing Integrity Unit had found no new evidence of Taylor’s innocence in its recently completed review of the original case.
Court documents show Conover had originally planned to announce Taylor’s innocence following the review, but she told a colleague she changed course “because Phoenix lawyers had threatened bar discipline and possible disbarment if she went forward with the plan to exonerate Taylor,” the Star’s Jamie Donnelly reported.
On Thursday, the saga came to a head when Berkman, a veteran trial lawyer, returned to the courtroom for the first time in years to argue for access to the documents. Conover was not present and is being represented in the case by private attorney Paul Loucks.
“This is probably the most egregious violation of public records law I’ve ever seen and the conduct of the county attorney in not disclosing all this stuff earlier,” Berkman said. “I just think the behavior has been outrageous.”
Berkman asked the judge to issue $5,000 in sanctions that Conover has to pay out of her own pocket, not the county coffers, to make the statement that “you can’t treat people this way.”
Most public records aren’t free, and now that we’re in business for ourselves, we have to foot that bill. Help us continue to be able to do records-based reporting.
But Loucks said Berkman is seeking records that didn’t exist when he made his request in 2021, and that the statute doesn’t require public agencies to create new records.
“The only thing we’re talking about is was there a public record or should it be disclosed,” Loucks said.
Another issue, according to Berkman, is Conover has not disputed that she was ever involved in the Taylor case, which means either she didn’t tell the truth during her campaign or isn’t being truthful now. Either way, he said, “it’s an issue.”
At the end of the 90-minute hearing, it seemed clear there was a fair amount of confusion surrounding what records had been and should have been produced.
After the hearing, Conover issued a lengthy statement to KVOA’s Lupita Murillo.
“When a single Pima County resident is responsible for 10% of the requests to our office, it borders on an abuse of the public records system for which all Pima County residents pay in time, resources, and money,” she said in the statement.
The judge gave Conover’s office until September 8 to provide him a list of the records that it had given to Berkman, saying that at that point, he’d decide whether to hold another hearing or issue a final ruling.
But with potentially tens of thousands of documents in play — Loucks said the original case file for the Pioneer File filled up 26 bankers boxes — wrapping up this case in a matter of weeks feels like a long shot.
Two different cities: The candidates for the Ward 2 seat on the Tucson City Council have drastically different views of the city, the Tucson Sentinel’s Jim Nintzel reports. Incumbent Paul Cunningham sees a city on the rise, while challenger Lisa Nutt sees a city on a downward spiral. They give their reasons, and what they’d do about it, in the latest of Nintzel’s profiles of council candidates.
There for the taking: Councilman Steve Kozachik is eyeing those abandoned shipping containers former Gov. Doug Ducey used to build a $200 million barrier on Arizona’s border with Mexico. Kozachik wants to see if the containers could be used for tiny homes in Tucson, AZPM’s Danyelle Khmara reports. That would require some tweaks to the building and zoning code, but Kozachik thinks it’s do-able.
“The containers are available. They’re being marketed by the state. We have companies that are out buying them, setting them aside and waiting for us to get some of our code changes into place so they can get into this market and start putting people into homes,” Kozachik told Khmara.
Miracle incoming: The Sleepy Hollow trailer park in the Miracle Mile district is going to get a shot of life once 44 affordable homes are built, the Arizona Luminaria’s Becky Pallack reports. The project, which is being developed by La Frontera Arizona, has been in the works for years.
Taking forever: Gov. Katie Hobbs dismissed the entire board of the Arizona-Mexico Commission shortly after she took office. Five months later, Hobbs still hasn’t filled any of the vacancies, the Arizona Republic’s Stacey Barchenger reports. Hobbs’ office insists she’s moving quickly and finished interviewing candidates. But her sudden firing of the board in February or why it’s taken so long to fill the vacancies raises questions about how she sees Arizona’s relationship with Sonora.
30,000: That’s the number of documents former chief criminal deputy David Berkman says he hasn’t received in his public records requests to the Pima County Attorney’s Office.
This really had nothing to do with Laura Conover until Berkman and his colleagues from the LaWall administration started with the public records requests. Having worked for her, I feel confident Conover has followed the law. But the real question remains (which is what Berkman, LaWall, county administration et al don't want the media asking): How were they all complicit in Louis Taylor's wrongful conviction and how did they conspire to get him to plead no contest in an effort to save the county and themselves from liability?