We wrote in a blog item the other day about the passing of 94-year-old Viva Leroy Nash, who was the oldest person on death row in the United States. Nash had been housed on Arizona’s death row in Florence since the early 1980s, after his conviction for murdering a young…

For the phrase “natural causes” to have been in the same headline as the name Viva Leroy Nash is purely ironic. Nash, who died Friday, February 12, at age 94 — he was the oldest person on death row in the United States — escaped legal execution by the state…

We didn’t hold out a great deal of hope that the perennially weak Arizona Medical Board would drop the hammer on Dr. Joseph Franzett, the subject of two New Times exposes in recent years, this one and this one.   The latter story, entitled “Dr. Deception,” described how the  Phoenix-area…

Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s public-relations team issued a joyous press release after winning a civil rights case in U.S. District Court in downtown Phoenix. “Civil Rights Violation Case Is 12th Straight Jury Win For Arpaio,” the sheriff’s flacks titled it. The recent release quoted Arpaio: “Once again, this is yet another…

We just returned from the Arizona Court of Appeals, where a three-judge panel heard arguments in the curious contempt case of Adam Stoddard.   Readers surely remember the unprecedented (as far as we can tell) case — about a sheriff’s detention officer who got into a pickle last October after…

 Phoenix fire Captain Willie Nelson, a dogged sleuth who knows how to tell arson from accidental, has been named the department’s top investigator for 2009. ​Nelson (alas, no relation to the famous country crooner pictured in this long-ago photo) has been with Phoenix Fire since 1986 and a captain since 2004. He also is…

The story was almost as infuriating as it was tragic:   A veteran police officer makes a so-called “routine” stop of a vehicle on a Maricopa County road. The vehicle is occupied by two men. The driver of the car has an outstanding warrant for his arrest, and has served time in prison for committing…

Rabbi Albert Plotkin, known far and wide as one of the greatest (and most egalitarian) spiritual leaders to lead a congregation in these parts, died on Wednesday. He was 89. ​Plotkin was a remarkable man.  He was in the forefront of the civil-rights movement of the 1960s, and worked until the end…

The lead story on KPHO-TV’s evening news last April 1 had bombshell potential. With a mug shot of a sullen-looking African-American man looming in the background, Channel 5’s anchor opened the newscast with: “It’s a new face on the most notorious crime spree in Valley history. This is Terry Wayne Smith…

We have been a huge fan of Dr. Howard Zinn since the late 1960s, which dates us, but WTF.   He was a staunch opponent of the Vietnam War (in fact, this World War II veteran who served as an Air Force bombadier was against just about all wars), and wrote and spoke about his…

Diehard Arizona Wildcats men’s basketball haters were sure just a few short weeks ago that this was the year that the Cats’ incredible streak — 25 straight seasons in the NCAA national tournament — finally would end. After all, BYU beat the Wildcats by 30 points down in Tucson at the end of…

On Maricopa County sheriff’s Deputy Roy Cook’s last day on duty, a colleague said of him, “Too bad. He was just starting to figure out the job.” Yeah, after 44 years as a lawman, which apparently makes Deputy Cook the longest tenured of any Maricopa County employee on record. Having…

We got an incredible e-mail a few hours ago from Alan Hedges, a Texas man whose 7-year-old granddaughter, Alexia, and her grandmother Mauricia Aviles (in the photo) were bludgeoned to death in 1999 by seriously mentally ill family member Rodney Aviles.   We wrote extensively about the case. This is…