A warden, a deputy warden, and a regional director have all been suspended several days without pay as a result of an inmate being kept in an outdoor cage overnight at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Tucson. According to a Department of Corrections investigation of the incident, inmate Elisio…

The Arizona Democratic Party has joined the legions of geeks parodying director Danny Boyle’s 2002 post-apocalyptic horror flick 28 Days Later with this YouTube video envisioning the aftermath of Governor Jan Brewer’s reign.The analogy works pretty well, as Brewer’s recent Clean Elections Debate performance was definitely zombie-like. I suppose the…

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office did not review a 3,000 page internal Arizona Department of Corrections investigation into the 2009 cage death of Perryville Prison inmate Marcia Powell.The County Attorney’s office last week declined to prosecute anyone involved in Powell’s heat-related death. The ADC had asked for charges of negligent…

Props to the campaign of governor-wannabe and current Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard. This latest YouTube video from the Goddard camp body-slams Governor Jan “We Have Did” Brewer on her bogus statements about headless bodies in the Arizona desert. Looks like Goddard’s ready to go into cage fighter mode. (I know,”Terry?”…

Recently, someone e-mailed me asking if the aged, stone-faced action hero Steven Seagal, who stars in Robert Rodriguez’s Mexican-immigration revenge flick Machete as a badass drug lord, was one of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “special deputies.” You know, like Lou Ferrigno, Ted Nugent, and other lesser lights.I told the e-mailer I…

Dennis Gilman’s simple suggestion for a Goddard attack adNo use belaboring a point: Governor Jan Brewer’s a colossal idiot. How did this hillbilly queen become governor? Oh, that’s right, she lucked into the job once ex-Gov. Janet Napolitano skipped Sand Land to become the Obama administration’s official border hawk and…

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today reversed the 2008 conviction of No More Deaths activist Dan Millis for placing gallon jugs of drinking water on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in southern Arizona.Millis was cited for “littering” in February of 2008 by U.S. Fish and Wildlife officers after he…

After more than a year and a-half of investigation, requests for documents and access, and threats and deadlines, the U.S. Department of Justice has at last, reluctantly, taken some action and sued Sheriff Joe Arpaio in federal court to force him to cooperate with its civil rights probe of his…

Last night’s report from KPHO’s Morgan Loew on the ties between private prison behemoth Corrections Corporation of America and Governor Jan Brewer has drawn some serious plasma from Brewer’s camp. Specifically, the hemorrhage is from Brewer’s top political advisor Chuck Coughlin, president of HighGround Public Affairs, which also represents CCA. Seems Coughlin’s squealing like a skewered…

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has chosen not to prosecute Arizona Department of Corrections staff in the death of inmate Marcia Powell. Powell, 48, died May 20, 2009, after being kept in a human cage in Goodyear’s Perryville Prison for at least four hours in the blazing Arizona sun. This, despite a…

Today is a red letter day in former County Attorney Andrew Thomas’ life. From here on out, barring a bolt of lightning, he’ll have oodles of free time to pursue other interests. So here are some suggestions for “Candy.” Feel free to add your own. I did leave out him…

Just to keep you updated, as of 5:54 p.m. Monday, state Schools Superintendent Tom Horne had a comfortable 887 vote lead over ex-Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas in the GOP primary for state Attorney General. According to spokesman Matt Benson at the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office, there are only 900 provisional ballots…

Almost immediately after interim Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley’s devastating loss in the GOP primary to Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s pick for the position, Bill Montgomery, Democrats and disaffected Republicans alike began to whisper about Romley running as a write-in in the general election. The theory, albeit farfetched, went like this: Sure,…

Governor Jan Brewer’s political operatives are by no means as dumb as their candidate. Evidence the PR stunt they let drop Friday, berating the U.S. State Department for daring to mention Arizona’s breathing while brown law, SB 1070, in America’s first ever report as part of its “Universal Periodic Review”…

State Schools Superintendent Tom Horne declared victory Saturday night over former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, his rival in the GOP primary for state Attorney General. This, after today’s count left Horne 853 votes in front, with only around 4,500 votes left to tabulate across Arizona, according to the Secretary…

Here’s a little news for those Sand Land haters out there who’ve dissed Shaun Attwood, author of Hard Time: A Brit in America’s Toughest Jail, the subject of my most recent Bird column. Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the guy Attwood takes to task for the squalid, dangerous conditions in his vast incarceration complex, is…

(Alert: Please see 8/28 update below.)As of 6:36 p.m. today, the Arizona Secretary of State’s office was reporting that state Schools Superintendent Tom Horne leads his rival, former County Attorney Andrew Thomas, by 485 votes in the GOP primary for state Attorney General. SOS spokesman Matthew Benson told me that there…

The end is apparently at hand for former County Attorney Andrew Thomas. Sources within the campaign of state Schools Superintendent Tom Horne, Thomas’ rival in the GOP primary for state Attorney General, have told me that they expect Thomas to concede today. As if to confirm this, Thomas’ PR flack…

It’s not looking good for former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas. As of the end of today’s count of the remaining ballots, state Schools Superintendent Tom Horne had expanded his lead of about 400 votes from yesterday to 1,073. This, in the GOP nod for state Attorney General. According to the…

The U.S. Department of Justice has given Sheriff Joe Arpaio yet another deadline in its ongoing civil rights investigation of his office: August 27.In a lengthy letter from DOJ attorney Judy Preston to Arpaio’s D.C. mouthpiece Robert Driscoll, Preston details what the DOJ told Driscoll it wants from the MCSO…