ARIZONA COMMON SENSE

September 03, 2011 Volume 1, Number 2

The profession of the law, in its nature the noblest and most beneficial to mankind, is in its abuse and abasement the most sordid and pernicious --Bolingbroke

GILMARTIN TRIAL TRANSCRIPT REVEALS CORRUPTION AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF THE TUCSON POLICE DEPARTMENT.
On September 14, 2006, after three weeks of trial in which Defendant former Tucson Police Chiefs Smith, Miranda and Ochoa took the stand and lied under oath, and then lied again, again and again, seasoned trial attorney Richard Martinez knew better than to ask the jury for a specific dollar amount: as things turned out, anything he might have dared ask them for would certainly have been dwarfed by the award they gave. Instead, Martinez appealed to the jurys sense of right and wrongand their sense of disgust and dismay, as he put itand, after looking at and listening carefully to Defendants Smith, Miranda and Ochoa for three weeks, the jury must have had a whole lot of disgust and dismay in their minds when they awarded Plaintiffs Gilmartin and Harris a cool 9 hundred thousand dollars in compensatory damages, and nearly 2 million dollars more in punitive damages. The jury found that in 1998 the Defendants had stacked the deck and perjured themselves to deny Plaintiffs renewal of a contract they had to provide counseling services to the Tucson Police Department Behavioral Sciences Unit, all in retaliation for Plaintiff Gilmartin providing testimony on behalf of Tucson Police Officers in a suit against Tucson Police Department Officials. The punitive damage award itself was particularly significant: the jury found that the Defendants engaged in aggravated and outrageous conduct, or otherwise acted with an evil mind, intending to defraud or injure. The jury was comprised of local citizens who gave up three weeks of their lives, examined the evidence and went on to hold the Defendants personally liable for the largest amount of punitive damages ever awarded against public officials in Arizona history. The jury took an oath to uphold the law. They did their duty. And after they did Tucson City Manager Mike Hein declared that Defendant Miranda had unquestioned moral compass

and hired him as Assistant City Manager, Tucson City Attorney Mike Rankin went ahead and unlawfully spent more than half a million dollar in public money to satisfy the punitive damages, Mayor Walkup said he was pleased with Mirandas new position and the City Council signed off on the whole deal. In other words: to hell with the federal judge and jury. We Tucson Public Officials hold ourselves above the law weve sworn to protect. How can any honest minded person reconcile the jurys effort and verdict in 2006 with the decision the Good Ole Boys made several years later when they promoted a guy who the jury found acted with an evil mind, intending to defraud or injure, from Police Chief to Assistant Tucson City Manager at a whopping 50% increase in pay? In 2006 the Gilmartin Jury found that Tucson City Officials, and especially Miranda, got rid of Gilmartin and Harris for standing up, telling the truth, and doing the right thing. What kind of a message does it send to the public and to city workers themselves when the City of Tucson actually promotes someone who has been found liable for lying, cheating and stealing? Thats a question Tucson community activist Roy Warden intends to ask when he addresses the Tucson City Council on Wednesday September 9, 2011. The Tucson City Council and Mayor have sworn an oath but they have failed their duty to protect the public interest, Warden says. Warden also says that members of the local bar and public, every elected Tucson public official, should go to the Tucson City Clerks Office and read for themselves the entire Gilmartin Trial Transcript. We have 200 million dollars of Rio Nuevo funds unaccounted for, the FBI seizing Rio Nuevo files, Tucson City Manager Mike Letcher telling the public, Oh, dont keep looking to the past, we got to move forward, proven liars, cheaters and thieves like Richard Miranda promoted to high office, the unlawful use of public money to pay punitive damage awards, furlough days at the municipal courthouse, the 911 system in collapse, firefighters laid off, the erosion of public confidence, etc. Rome burns, public officials steal money while the City Council dithers and Mayor Walkup decides to proclaim July 20 2011 as Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, Warden says.

Something is very, very wrong in the Old Pueblo. And its time our elected officials did something about it. Roy Warden, Publisher Arizona Common Sense 1015 W. Prince Road #131-182 Tucson Arizona 85705 roywarden@hotmail.com