Officials aim to end specialty courtsBy
Gary Grado, Tribune The
county’s prosecutor and a state lawmaker are aiming to abolish
courts in Maricopa County that focus on Spanish speakers, American
Indians and the homeless, saying they run counter to the concept
of equal justice. Earlier this year, Thomas pulled a staff member from a committee organizing a court for the homeless that Tempe and Phoenix Municipal Courts will begin operating in Feb- ruary. And Rep. Russell Pearce, RMesa, chairman of a House Appropriations Committee, said he will use the "big stick" of withholding funds if necessary to end them. Both elected officials say the trend of creating courts based on race, language and socioeconomic status is unconstitutional, a trip down a slippery slope, and they are troubled by it. "Are we going to create a Catholic court and maybe we ought to have an all-white court, I mean it’s crazy," Pearce said Wednesday. Presiding Judge Barbara Rodriguez Mundell, who oversees Maricopa County Superior Court and the county’s lower courts, said the special courts are constitutional and Thomas doesn’t understand how they operate. The Spanish-speaking and American Indian DUI courts were established in 2002 before Thomas was elected and are funded by a federal grant. They are rehabilitation programs for convicted felony DUI offenders on probation, said Mundell, who handles the Spanish-speaking court. "We want to teach people skills so that they maintain |
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sobriety so they don’t drink and drive, and it is important to give them these lessons in their native language so they understand fully and they buy into the program," she said. The Arizona Constitution requires that all courts of record, those where a record of every spoken and written word is kept, conduct business in English. That means all pretrial, trial, change of plea and sentencing proceedings must be done in English, but once a Spanish speaker is convicted and joins the program, then the proceedings are no longer "of record" and are simply monthly status conferences on the rehabilitative progress of the defendant, Mundell said. If the defendant violates probation and has to be taken into custody after the conviction, then the proceedings revert to English and back on the record, she said. Even if it is essentially a postconviction, probation program, the Spanish-speaking and American Indian DUI courts violate the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits states from denying citizens equal protection of the law, Thomas said. "You’re making decisions about criminal punishment, which is what probation is, based on someone’s nationality," Thomas said. The prosecutor has no problem with such programs as standard DUI court, domestic violence court or drug court because they are separated by crime, not race, nationality or language. "Even at the height of Reconstruction, at the height of segregation, Southern governments did not create separate courts for people based on race," he said. Judge L ouraine Arkfeld, Tempe Municipal Court’s presiding judge, said the homeless court requires more than just being homeless to participate. Arkfeld said the defendants must be referred by specific agencies only after undergoing significant treatment and sobriety. "This is another obstacle they have in getting things resolved so they can go back to being productive citizens," Arkfeld said. This information is courtesy of http://www.eastvalleytribune.com |
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