The Arizona Supreme Court issued a full opinion last week explaining why the court upheld the suspension of former Maricopa County prosecutor April Sponsel’s law license for two years. The State Bar of Arizona’s disciplinary judge Margaret Downie issued the suspension in December 2023 due to Sponsel prosecuting violent Antifa rioters who were protesting the death of George Floyd, and the Arizona Supreme Court stated last September that the justices would be issuing an opinion agreeing with the suspension.
A prominent former prosecutor told The Arizona Sun Times that this creates a very bad precedent, judges second guessing prosecutors. The opinion appeared to echo much of the Biden administration’s DOJ report about the Phoenix Police Department (PPD). That report, which focused extensively on PPD’s handling of Antifa riots, selectively left out key details exonerating the police and sided with the rioters’ versions of events, treating their statements as facts.
Steve Serbalik, attorney for the Arizona Conference of Police and Sheriffs, issued a series of videos refuting the DOJ report. Last month, Representative Abe Hamadeh (R-AZ-08) asked the Trump administration last Wednesday to rescind the report. The Trump administration has paused all investigations into police departments around the country launched by the Biden administration.
The court’s opinion nitpicked actions by the longtime prosecutor, who had no disciplinary history but was fired by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office (MCAO) over it, accusing her of violating several broad, vague ethics rules typically used to target conservative attorneys. Those actions would not normally result in discipline against prosecutors. The opinion downplayed Antifa’s violence and portrayed law enforcement’s response in the worst light possible.
One of the main accusations throughout the opinion was that Sponsel did not watch enough of the bodycam videos from police officers. However, the opinion failed to note that Sponsel had a caseload of 82 cases at the time, and there is no requirement or rule that prosecutors watch a minimal amount of bodycam videos, a relatively new type of evidence which has exploded in volume. The MCAO has 40 employees devoted to responding to requests for bodycam videos. The attorney for the PPD spent numerous 12-hour long days watching all of the bodycam videos from the Floyd rioting.
Similarly, the opinion criticized Sponsel for not showing the grand jury more videos. Again, there are no rules that state that prosecutors must show grand juries a certain number or length of videos.
Another one of the main criticisms of Sponsel was that gang charges shouldn’t have been brought since the Gangnet database, which is operated by federal authorities, did not list Antifa, also known as ACAB (which means All Cops Are Bastards) as a gang. However, sources familiar with gang prosecutions at MCAO previously told The Sun Times that there was no policy at MCAO that required an organization to be listed as a gang in that database in order to bring gang charges. Neither Downie’s opinion nor the court’s opinion mentioned this.
A source familiar with Gangnet told The Sun Times that Gangnet is a flawed database due to the inaccuracies, resulting in law enforcement using it less and less. He said it has never been cleaned out, even though people named in it are supposed to be purged if they haven’t been contacted by law enforcement in five years. It is such a “disaster” that someone created a gang with one person and labeled it “South Park” as a joke. The analysts running it are not trained law enforcement personnel working on gang patrol, the source said. In order to access the database, law enforcement must comply with federal regulations which have different definitions than states.
The court’s opinion emphasized the opinion of one lone progressive prosecutor who disagreed with Sponsel on bringing gang charges against Antifa, Ryan Green, who was responsible for DEI presentations for the office. The rest of the prosecutors and law enforcement officers in the initial meeting deciding what charges to bring all wanted to bring gang charges. The office reversed its position immediately after a series of videos was released by ABC-15 attacking PPD’s handling of the rioters. The court’s opinion never mentioned any of that.
A former top Maricopa County prosecutor told The Sun Times, “To say that Gangnet has anything to do with whether or not something is a gang is preposterous and completely contrary to common sense. How could you ever have a new gang? What if DPS decided to shut down the database? It is soooo disingenuous to not even mention there is a statute directly on point that tells you exactly what a gang is or isn’t. This opinion doesn’t even mention that statute?!?”
He said Green was the lead prosecutor on a series of cases known as “Operation Melting Pot.” The premise behind Melting Pot was that gang members from rival gangs would set aside their rivalries and do home invasions together (thus “Melting Pot”). The theory of the case argued by Green was that they were a gang for as long as it took to do the home invasion. Green said during his opening arguments that they were a gang for “20 minutes.” Several of the defendants were indicted with gang charges — even though Melting Pot was not listed as a gang in Gangnet. The court’s opinion failed to bring out any of this exonerating information.
Brian Levin, director of California State University, San Bernardino’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, said Antifa “is gang behavior with some ideology.” Wes McBride, president of the California Gang Investigators’ Association, said about Antifa, “I think under state law they could easily be declared a gang. They behave like a gang. They have defined commitment to violence. They have their own gang dress.”
A former Arizona Department of Public Safety intelligence officer who worked at the watch center and accessed the gang database told The Sun Times he can prove that those groups were violent. Intel from all the law enforcement agencies across the country labeled Antifa and ACAB as a violent extremist organization/gang.
He provided The Sun Times with multiple bulletins from the Regional Information Sharing Systems (RISS) Program nationwide database for law enforcement agencies that discussed Antifa members and warned about their violence. This was typical of the descriptions, “According to the Southwest Texas Fusion Center, on 29 May 2020, a Twitter account, ‘Black Lives Matter/ACAB,’ posted a thread providing advice on how to fashion riot gear such as gas masks and bullet plating vests, and includes tips on how to disable a police vehicle, including ‘pour a bunch of soda in the gas tank’ and forcibly open a police vehicle by ‘jimmying it out…’”
Small discrepancies were held against Sponsel, without any response from her that might have indicated a misinterpretation or misreporting. For example, the opinion stated that she was wrong about a rioter carrying a sharpened umbrella, but never followed up with her. Sponsel told The Sun Times she was never even interviewed.
The opinion extensively covered the actions of a man who said he was only present to take photos of the sunset, but did not mention how many times the police asked him to leave, instead only covering his response claiming he didn’t hear the police. Sponsel believed Ryder Collins was part of Antifa, working as their photographer due to his actions. Collins admitted that he refused to cooperate with police. His photos were taken in the middle of the street after the police had told the rioters to move. Riley Behrens, a woman who identifies as a man who chose to cooperate with the police, referred to Collins by his first name as if she knew him, further creating the impression he was with Antifa.
The main ethics rule used against Sponsel was ER 8.4(d), which provides: “It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to . . . engage in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice.” It is so broad it can encompass almost anything. The opinion noted that
“ER 8.4(d) does not require a mental state other than negligence,” making it even easier to apply against an attorney.
Other vague, broad ethics rules used against her were ER 1.1, which states that “[a] lawyer shall provide competent representation to a client,” ER 1.3, which states, “A lawyer shall act with reasonable diligence and promptness in representing a client,” and ER 3.1, which states that a lawyer shall not bring a “frivolous” claim. That last rule is frequently used against conservative election attorneys challenging corruption in elections.
Several of the Antifa rioters who filed lawsuits over their arrests have since admitted guilt during their depositions, and some have dropped out of the lawsuits, not wanting to be deposed under oath. There are only four to five plaintiffs left in the case. However, even with the case falling apart, sources told The Sun Times they are hearing talk of reviving prosecution against Sponsel. The Pinal County Attorney already declined to prosecute her and several PPD officers.
A former high-level prosecutor told The Sun Times that the Arizona Supreme Court, which consists mostly of judges appointed by former Governor Doug Ducey, should now be called “Ducey’s RINO court.” The court has issued numerous rulings hostile to election integrity.
MCAO under the leadership of Rachel Mitchell has developed a reputation for being soft on crime. Mitchell’s Chief Deputy Blaine Gadow makes pro-BLM posts on his social media accounts.
Walter Ringfield Jr., a progressive activist and temporary employee for Maricopa County Elections Department who was caught stealing a key FOB that would have reprogrammed all 140 voting machine tabulators on Election Day in Maricopa County, was given a diversion agreement by MCAO for a previous crime. If he had been fully prosecuted, it would have shown up in a background check and he would not have been hired at the county. Ringfield is now behind bars for election theft.
Other aspects of the opinion were refuted in a previous article about the suspension, including nitpicking a couple of her other cases. All of the justices on the Arizona Supreme Court signed onto the opinion, which was authored by Justice James Beene. Justice Bill Montgomery recused himself and was replaced by Court of Appeals Justice Jennifer Perkins.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
Image “April Sponsel” by ABC15 News.
In the inimitable words of Sleepy Joe Biden, “What a bunch of malarkey!”