Today the Tribune editorially agrees with my concerns about the appearance of conflict for former Napolitano attorney, now Supreme Court Justice Scott Bales. Let’s see what he does with it.
A few years back the Arizona Supreme Court, by a 3-2 vote, overturned an appeals court judge’s decision preventing Arizona’s correctional system from transporting a 14-year-old girl to Kansas for a late-term abortion that would have been illegal here. In that case, former Justice Stanley Feldman — once a lobbyist and attorney for Planned Parenthood — offered to recuse himself rather than cast the tie-breaking vote. The lawyers for the Arizona Attorney General said, in essence, “No, that’s OK, you’re fine.”
The Attorney General then? Janet Napolitano, who made it part of her platform in running for Attorney General that she would refuse to defend laws regulating abortion passed by the Legislature. It’s nice to have friends in high places … or high courts, as the case may be.
