During the 13 weeks he’s presided over Governor J. Fife Symington III’s criminal trial, U.S. District Court Judge Roger B. Strand often has delayed making even routine decisions. His indecisiveness continued Tuesday, August 5, when Strand declined to release final jury instructions to the prosecution and defense lawyers on the…
When you talk about Phoenix to people from other states, they mention the heat, the mistreatment of prisoners in Joe Arpaio’s gulag, and, maybe, the Suns. But it’s rare to hear anyone mention that Phoenix has produced one of the greatest fighters in the history of boxing. Michael Carbajal’s impact…
In late July, Mesa city councilmember Jim Stapley sued fellow councilmember Joan Payne. Stapley claimed that Payne had slandered him by calling him a “pervert in polyester” on a local radio talk show. Stapley also sought an injunction in Maricopa County Superior Court preventing Payne from talking about him over…
Temp Tantrum This concerns the column written by Michael Lacey (“Typo Negative,” June 5) about the testimony of J. Fife Symington III’s former secretary, Joyce Riebel, relating the governor’s alleged banking corruption. In discussing Riebel’s experience and her previous connections with powerful and influential men, Lacey stated that she is…
At first, the beat-to-hell Tempe tract home doesn’t look like the epicenter of anything. Except, maybe, the white-trash universe. The neglected desert landscaping has long since returned to the Earth, leaving behind an unsightly collage of gravel, dirt and tar-paper shards. In the center of the lawn stands a greasy…
Here’s a vision of hell, as drawn by Todd McFarlane in the 10th issue of Spawn, the best-selling comic book in the country: A row of black-hooded men, hands lashed behind them, stands trembling with fear. Flames curl around their feet. Beneath their hoods, the men are weeping. Before them…
Wayne Legg handed his wallet, watch and keys to a friend a few minutes before the jury delivered its verdict on Tuesday afternoon. He must have had a premonition. The panel convicted the once-powerful Mesa attorney on 13 counts of felony theft and fraud after a monthlong trial. Moments after…
Why Fife’s Defendantsy If the conviction bug bites Governor J. Fife Symington III, deliberations over his sentence should take the following statements into consideration. The Fifester included them in a letter he issued on July 10, 1992, in conjunction with his veto of Senate Bill 1490, legislation that would have…
Inexorably, federal prosecutor David Schindler is dragging Governor J. Fife Symington III through a time Symington would rather forget. Schindler is taking Symington back 12 years, to the fall of 1985, when the first major cracks in Symington’s development company began to appear. Back to the days when Symington was…
It’s not hard to see why basketball has caught on the way it has. Unlike baseball, it’s fast-paced and easy to follow, even if you don’t understand all the rules. Unlike football, it’s as much about personal charisma as athletic prowess–the personalities of Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman are allowed…
Road Work Ahead I used to think 1989’s ValTrans was a bad idea, but Proposition 1 is looking worse (“Trainplotting,” Howard Stansfield, July 3). ValTrans actually had a plan. There was a 30-page report laying out how the taxpayers’ money would be spent. We knew where the routes would be…
The woman, we’ll call her Anna, recently left the medical staff at one of the county’s jails, and what she saw there shocked her. Anna makes it clear that administering to inmates is difficult work. Many of the inmates are malingerers who can make life hell for the people who…
Brian Dickerson and Lyle Miller own a dog. The two men moved in together four years ago, and the Dalmatian puppy was a birthday gift from Dickerson to Miller to anchor their new family. They named her Sarafina. The three share a small apartment in central Phoenix, where Sarafina has…
I’ve interviewed thousands of people during my time as a journalist, but none more memorable than Ethel Marley. In November, we spoke by phone for more than an hour about the 1988 murder of her friend and neighbor Jeanne Tovrea. While she had some interesting things to say about the…
Thirteen months ago–on June 13, 1996–Governor J. Fife Symington III summoned the media to the State Capitol to respond to the announcement that a federal grand jury had accused him of committing 23 felonies. Symington told the packed conference room that he wouldn’t attempt to detail the evidence that he…
For Crying Out Dowd It’s eminently fitting that John Dowd is Governor J. Fife Symington III’s lawyer. They are much alike. Both are wealthy, privileged and powerful enough to believe they are above the rules of law and civility the rest of us live by. Dowd has taken his efforts…
I knock on the door, let myself in. Melody Baker can’t hobble from the living-room couch to the front door unless she takes the morphine prescribed by her doctor. And today, she is trying to forgo the morphine. She wants to explain to me, in the most clear-headed way possible,…
Mother’s Day in Court Wow! The intricacies of spin never cease to amaze me, no matter from which side, as John Dougherty’s “Sugar Mommy” article (July 10) regarding the governor’s trial so brilliantly illustrates. My main comment: Do not speak for the governor’s dead mother. As a mom, I can…
Imagine it, the worst possible scenario: You’re having a heart attack, your breath stopping, the life trying to escape from your body. Or you’re a broken mess on the highway, wreckage jammed around you, blood choking you. It can’t get worse. And then it does. The ambulance takes a long…
Damon Dreckmeier’s blood was coming out both ends of him, and it had been coming out for hours. Vomited blood ran out of his mouth, down his chin and over his neck; it stained the seat of his pants. A nauseating, numbing feeling began in his stomach and gradually spread…
The U S West Direct Yellow Pages dated March 1997-98 advertises the “low fees–expert service” of attorney Robert L. Devers. “Services limited to bankruptcy. Seventeen years experience. Over 5,000 cases handled,” the small ad says. A few pages later, there’s a quarter-page ad for attorney Anthony W. Clark, whose “Arizona…
A young man struggles along an empty stretch of desert road. Behind him rise the craggy fortresses and spires of Monument Valley–the Monument Valley of John Ford’s Stagecoach and Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, of Easy Rider and Thelma & Louise and Forrest Gump. It’s such…
