The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office is one of the largest prosecutorial agencies in the country. Working with two law enforcement agencies under federal scrutiny, it has dealt with its share of controversy — and a massive backlog of cases.
The direction of the office will be determined by the winner of November’s county attorney election. The race features an incumbent and a challenger, both with more than 30 years of experience in criminal justice. And the two candidates have very different visions.
In 2022, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office handled more than 50,000 criminal prosecutions. That’s the year Rachel Mitchell was appointed to succeed Allister Adel, who resigned for health reasons. Mitchell — a prosecutor in the office for 32 years — was later elected to fill out the remainder of Adel’s term. She is now running for a full four-year term.
She says one of the biggest challenges for the criminal justice system is something beyond her control: a shortage of police officers.
"That sounds like it’s outside of my agency but the reality is if they don’t have the personnel to investigate, you know, or it could slow down an investigation, that's a big impact on us," Mitchell said.
When she took over in 2022, the office had a backlog of hundreds of felony DUI cases. Another 200 misdemeanor cases had to be dropped because they were not filed on time.
"I was very disturbed by what was happening before I took over that was causing the reputation of our office to suffer. You know, that was one of the first things we tackled," Mitchell said.
Mitchell has reduced the backlog and turnover in the office.
Her opponent says the office still has work to do. Tamika Wooten has been a prosecutor and defense attorney and a city judge. She says the top priority for the next county attorney is "gaining the public’s trust, actually. Again as I mentioned there’s a lot of sweetheart deals going to certain people and then other people are getting harsher pleas."
Wooten said she wants to address the way the office determines what charges are filed. She says mandatory sentencing limits how a judge can deal with a conviction.
"Once you put a person in a certain category and they’re charged in a certain way and they’re found guilty or they plead to that range, then they must stay within that range. The thing is you have discretion in what you’re going to charge or what you’re going to plead a person down to, so then at that point, that’s where the discrepancies occur," Wooten said.
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and the Phoenix Police Department are the two largest law enforcement agencies the county attorney deals with, and both are under severe scrutiny. The Sheriff’s Office has been overseen by a federal monitor for years, as a result of discriminatory policing dating back to longtime Sheriff Joe Arpaio. And the U.S. Department of Justice recently concluded a years-long investigation into Phoenix police, finding the department engaged in a pattern of civil rights violations and unlawful policing.
The DOJ is pushing for a consent decree that would put the department under federal watch. Mitchell feels such oversight inhibits law enforcement.
"It results in micromanagement It results in less effort law enforcement to enforce the laws because they back away from things they think might be controversial even though they’re not," Mitchell said.
Wooten is less critical of the federal investigations. She cites her experience as a prosecutor in Glendale, describing how she handled cases that she says lacked reasonable cause and involved racial profiling.
"I would dismiss those cases and then I would do officer training. So likewise here if we have cases here, I’m going to make sure that those who work below me understand that we are not going to tolerate racial profiling," Wooten said.
One area the two candidates agree on is trying to make sure the County Attorney’s Office reflects the community. Wooten says as a person of color, she understands how minority communities feel.
"I’ve stood arm in arm with police officers when a fellow officer has been shot, yet I’m also a brown person and I know what it feels like, I’ve seen family members who just get terrified, Wooten said.
She also says she wants to develop training that will reduce confrontations.
"So as county attorney, I plan on bridging that gap between law enforcement and community, bringing the community together with law enforcement in non-confrontational situations," Wooten said.
Mitchell says her office has made strides in improving diversity but says there is room for improvement.
"If you’re looking to our office for justice as a victim or someone who is accused, and you look at our office and you don’t see anyone who really looks like you or has your comparable life experience, that’s going to cause anybody to question whether its’s accurate or not whether you’re going to get the justice that you seek," Mitchell said.
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