Note: The video is a late add-in; when I wrote about this story originally this video of Stoddard actually committing the offense was not available. I am delighted ot offer it to you, about a 1 minute into the playback you can watch Stoddard begin his movement towards the counsel's file.
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[original post, below]
The Arizona Court of Appeals upheld the contempt of court finding against Maricopa County Sheriff's Deputy Adam Stoddard (pic), if you have been following this story you'll know that I reported on this outrage in early December, here, on Bad Lawyer. Prior to reading this story, I thought of Joe Arpaio, America's Toughest Sheriff as just some grandstanding clown out of the Southwest.
Then I learned that the Sheriff and his boys nakedly deprived a criminal defendant of his constitutional rights by stealing from his defense lawyer's trial table file, and then defied the Judge's order to apologize. My opinion about Arpaio and interest in this "law enforcement operation" changed. Nowadays, the Arizona Republic website has become a home away form home.
Today AZCentral is reporting that the Court of Appeals agreed that the act of Stoddard was egregious, upholding the contempt finding and ordering the trial judge to impose a more traditional contempt penalty: jail or a fine.
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