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| Arizona Corrections Dept. hires attorney |
| By Arizona Daily Sun |
| Published: 03/29/2004 |
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The Department of Corrections has hired a top assistant attorney general to help it with legal problems resulting from the 15-day hostage standoff. Robert Myers will become counsel to the agency, a position that does not now exist. He will be in an office adjacent to Corrections Director Dora Schriro. But Myers, currently the chief deputy attorney general, also will have the title of a special assistant attorney general. That will entitle him to provide confidential advice to Schriro. Corrections' publicist Cam Hunter said this is not part of an effort to derail a grand jury probe of the incident sought by Republican legislative leaders. She acknowledged her agency had gone to court seeking to kill that inquiry. But Hunter said that was only because Schriro believed the grand jury was being convened for an illegal purpose. Maricopa County Superior Court Eddward (cq) Ballinger rejected that effort. He concluded Melvin McDonald, named a special prosecutor by Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, was within his powers as long as he was looking at possible criminal misconduct. Myers promised cooperation with McDonald. "We will meet the letter and spirit of the law with respect to any legal request of the department or its employees," he said. But Myers said he could not predict whether there might be future challenges to what McDonald is doing. Myers said he also will help the department implement the recommendations of a gubernatorial task force that examined the conditions that led to the ability of two violent inmates to take hostages and hold them for 15 days. Myers, former presiding judge of Maricopa County Superior Court, will get $118,000 a year in his new post, about $2,000 less than his current salary. He is being replaced by James Walsh, who already is a an assistant attorney general, who already is earning $120,000. Walsh was an unsuccessful candidate for Corporation Commission in 2002. |
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