by Bill Ponath

The history of civilized man has seen a never-ending evolution of what we call a “system of  justice.”  It was not until well after Christ that the concept of a judge and jury was born to enable the accused in criminal matters to be judged by a group of his/her peers.  As a matter of fact; in ancient Rome there was no such thing as a “criminal court.”   If a person were to have been criminally wronged it was his/her responsibility to pursue a civil claim against the accused.  The government took no interest in prosecuting any crimes unless they were against the government itself.  Essentially; a person with no immediate family could be robbed and killed in the middle of the street in broad daylight and there would be no prosecution because no-one had standing to pursue the claim.

My; how things have changed.  In today’s world we are all judges, juries and prosecutioners who look only to the daily news and commentaries to reach judgment.  We assume that everything we see and hear; especially from any source of reasonably reliable information; such as the news media, is the gospel truth.  We feel no responsibility to question the conclusion reached by a public figure.  The problem is; if we are all guilty of everything we are accused of; Satan’s waiting area would simply not be large enough to process all of the new admittees.

Case in point: I enjoy listening to Barry Young every morning on KFYI but I am consistently baffled by his attacks on former Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce.  Mind you; Senator Pearce is a friend of mine and that may appear to suggest bias; but with or without any predilection of opinion concerning anyone’s character I am frustrated by Mr. Young’s assumption that Senator Pearce participated in some sort of conspiracy to plant Olivia Cortes on the ballot for Senator Pearce’s seat in the senate.  Let’s look at the facts:

1. Senator Pearce is; in no uncertain terms, the “father” of SB 1070; the legislation that adopted already existing federal law into a much less stringent set of Arizona statutes.  This made Senator Pearce a target for the liberal media to effectively “take him down.”
2. The media fueled a recall effort that was; in no uncertain terms, baseless.
3. Certain members of a tea party conspired to plant a sham candidate on the ballot in order to dilute Jerry Lewis’ support.
4. Certain members of Senator Pearce’s political panel; including some of his own relatives, perceived the benefits of this independent candidate without any knowledge or understanding of the basis for her political support and actually assisted in the effort.
5. Only after it became known that Ms. Cortes was not an actual candidate was any assistance and support withdrawn from her campaign.

Under no circumstances is there any shred of evidence that Senator Pearce, his campaign staff, or his relatives had any knowledge of the sham while they were taking advantage of it.  Nevertheless; they are duly tried, prosecuted, and convicted by Mr. Young and the rest of the media for a crime they did not commit.  The sad truth of this is that the State of Arizona has now been robbed of a man of unblemished character who has served us in law enforcement for many years, has been shot and wounded by criminals, and has almost lost his own son in the same fashion.  Yet he is a very happy man when he observes large groups of newly naturalized citizens of the United States; primarily Hispanics, as they are sworn in near the State’s Capital.  I have yet to see any of the liberal media; or even Barry Young, comment on this.  I must assume that this revelation of the actual truth may serve to confuse and mislead the propagandized readers and electorate and it therefore would be nonsensical to acknowledge this reality.  It is therefore best that the media let the sleeping dog lie and allow the general public to have grossly distorted opinions of one of their greatest heroes.  Sounds fair to me.

Senator Pearce; as I am certain we are all aware is not the only victim of the distortion of the truth.  I do not personally know former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas any more than occasional meetings and I therefore can make no comment concerning his matters before the Court.  I am nevertheless honored to claim that Rachel Alexander is a close friend who is also the victim of; sadly enough, malicious prosecution simply because she was doing her job.  Unfortunately; when doing one’s job may interfere with the goals of someone in power, somebody has to take the fall.

Let me put this in perspective:  Ms. Alexander has not discussed with me any of the behind-the-scenes details of what led to her being accused of these compromises in ethical duties.  She was working at her post as Assistant Maricopa County Prosecutor.  Her boss; Mr. Thomas, assigned to her the prosecution of certain elected officials.  She was presented with facts and evidence that clearly raised reasonable suspicion concerning wrongs committed by these individuals.  It was therefore her duty to proceed with levying charges against them.  UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE DID SHE DO ANYTHING WRONG.  Nevertheless; exposure of these facts concerning these elected officials meant that they needed to fight back.  Please notice that there has never been a shred of allegation that Ms. Alexander did anything unethical in the rest of her life.  The ONLY claim that can be made may be that she was working very hard to do her job.

Ms. Alexander’s need to answer her accusers is entirely political.  It is work to take the attention off of the accused and shift it to the accuser.  It has thus far been successful; which raises the point, why continue to accuse Ms. Alexander of any wrong-doing when there is no shred of evidence that she was not simply doing her job? . . . . . Because somebody has to take the fall to save these politicos from personal humiliation.

It is an unfortunate circumstance of life that we are all wrongly accused of indiscretions throughout our existence.  It began in childhood with finger pointing at our siblings and even the family pet.  Even I must confess to having been prosecuted by the State Bar Association in the early 90’s similarly to Ms. Alexander.  I therefore understand the burden that she will carry whether she is completely acquitted or whether they determine that she deserves the least available public admonishment of a censure; which is a published reprimand without any suspension of her license.

Let me tell you why I was censured.  The facts are that I never did anything wrong but I nevertheless failed to oversee what my employees were doing and therefore my trust account didn’t balance.  The reason I didn’t see what was wrong with the account was that certain employees were scheming to embezzle money from the firm.  They put up smoke screens and hid from me what they were doing.  I nevertheless confessed to this and I simply made sure that the final reports specifically stated that I did nothing wrong, but that the errors were based on“negligence.”

The problem with this is that most people who see that I was censured ASSUME that I did something dastardly wrong and that I am a hardened criminal.  The worse problem is that I am in fact responsible for the errors made by my employees but that Senator Pearce and Ms. Alexander did absolutely nothing wrong.  They never had ill intent, they never consciously acted to wrong anyone.  They were simply doing their jobs and they were doing them quite well; only to be dragged into “politically necessary” damage control by their opponents fueled by the almighty left-wing media.

I beg of any who read this: do not rush to conclusions until you know and understand the facts.  That is a patent expression of “innocent until proven guilty” but it is painfully obvious that the media do not grasp the significance of those words.  Let me put it this way: Senator Pearce and Rachel Alexander both knew by virtue of considerable experience with politics and the media that any misstep would be attacked without mercy.  Do you really believe that either of them would have even contemplated doing anything like what they accused of?  If so; they are not the real victims of medial prosecution, you the general public are.  You are hypnotized into believing trumped up exaggerations produced by those who resist the good of what these people are doing for justice.  It is a baffling quandary that the very system we fight to defend is the very same thing that fights to defeat us.

Justice will begin to be served when Senator Pearce is back in office and when all charges against Rachel Alexander are summarily dropped.  That service will only end when every person acknowledges that these dedicated individuals are in fact innocent of any wrongdoing.

Please tell Satan to cancel the remodeling.

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