A federal appeals court has ruled a federal judge did not "respect" the separation of powers doctrine, when he prohibited all 180 Arizona federal prosecutors from addressing a motion that alleges misconduct against one of their fellow prosecutors in a case against an alleged Tucson street gang.
The recent decision was penned by Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay, with concurrence from District Judge Jack Zouhary and Circuit Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting in Pasadena. The decision favored the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona in its dispute with a ruling by Arizona District Judge James Soto.
In 2018, Arizona federal prosecutors indicted 19 alleged members of the Tucson street gang Western Hills Bloods, asserting they engaged in drug dealing, gun trafficking, assaults and murder. In April 2022, 16 of the defendants filed a motion that claimed one prosecutor knew an ex-attorney for defendant Alexandria Monteen had also represented another person charged in an unrelated case, who had agreed to work with prosecutors against the alleged gang.
U.S. District Judge James Soto
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According to the defendants, the prosecutor knew of this potential conflict of interest in August 2021, but did not notify defendants or Judge Soto until March 2022.
The U.S. Attorney's Office was prepared to answer the motion, but Soto prohibited the office from doing so, agreeing with the defendants that an outside federal prosecutor should be brought in to handle the matter. The Attorney's Office appealed.
Circuit Judge Bumatay determined Soto had gone too far.
"The district court reached this sweeping sanction without making any findings of misconduct involving other members of the U.S. Attorney’s Office or the U.S. Attorney himself. Nor did the district court conclude that any member of the U.S. Attorney’s Office violated a law or ethical rule. Instead, the district court speculated about possible conflicts," Bumatay said.
Soto, in reaching his decision, applied a "misguided analogy to the corporate world," Bumatay noted.
Soto had said, "When you have an internal investigation, you don’t have in-house counsel doing that.”
Bumatay took exception to the analogy, pointing out "In-house counsels and federal prosecutors are not the same. The Executive branch is a co-equal branch of government — entitled to judicial respect. When disqualifying an entire Executive branch office, separation of powers requires much more than the district court provided."
Soto's action put him in the "constitutionally precarious position of overriding the will of the Executive branch without a basis in law or fact," Bumatay said.
The U.S. Attorney's Office was represented in appellate court by Arizona U.S. Assistant Attorney General Krissa Lanham.
The defendants were represented by Erin Carrillo, of Carrillo Law, of Tucson.