Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell and two top prosecutors are facing a new State Bar complaint that accuses them of ethical misconduct in a high-profile case that was tossed out of court.
The 46-page complaint was filed Friday by defense attorneys for Nubia Rodriguez, who was charged with negligent homicide in the traffic death of Phoenix officer Paul Rutherford.
“Nubia Rodriguez committed no crime. It was obvious. However, this did not prevent Maricopa County Prosecutor Tiffany Brady from charging Ms. Rodriguez with homicide. This did not prevent supervising attorneys Ken Vick and Rachel Mitchell from enabling Ms. Brady’s prosecution,” according to a copy of the complaint obtained by ABC15.
ABC15 reached out to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for comment, and a spokesperson said Vick and Brady had no comment.
But MCAO didn’t respond on behalf of Mitchell.
Instead, her campaign spokesperson, Matt Benson, sent the following emailed statement, “This meritless complaint is nothing more than a political hit job timed to coincide with Tuesday’s election. It’s unfortunate that ABC-15 would fall for this obvious ploy.”
The defense attorneys for Rodriguez, Lawrence Koplow and Armando Nava, declined to respond to the campaign’s allegation.
On March 21, 2019, Rodriguez hit Rutherford in the two-way turn lane on Indian School Road near 75thAvenue.
Rutherford, who wasn’t wearing a safety vest, was working a traffic accident when he suddenly ran into traffic without looking both ways. Business surveillance video shows him dart into traffic.
The charges against Rodriguez were dismissed twice by different judges.
In an August court order, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Jennifer Ryan-Touhill remanded the case back to the grand jury for what she called a “troubling” presentation filled with false and untrue testimony.
“The State allowed (a Phoenix detective) to present evidence designed to evoke sympathy from the jurors to distract the Grand Jury on whether probable cause exists,” Ryan-Touhill wrote.
MCAO then attempted to re-bring charges through a preliminary hearing, which involves a judge hearing the evidence and determining whether there’s probable cause.
After a three-day hearing in September, Judge Joseph Kreamer dismissed the case permanently by ruling there was no probable cause for the negligent homicide charges.
The Bar complaint contains a long list of allegations.
However, the underlying theme of the complaint is that Brady, Vick, and Mitchell refused to acknowledge evidence of Rutherford’s own fault in the crash and ignored exculpatory evidence of Rodriguez’s innocence.
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One key example was how MCAO didn’t show grand jurors video evidence of the crash from a nearby security camera.
“By pure coincidence, the final moments of this tragedy were captured on a security video of a nearby business,” the complaint states. “Without that video defense counsel believes Ms. Rodriguez would likely be a felon by now. Phoenix Police obtained the video soon after the accident. The video was never shown to the grand jury.”
The footage was critical to Judge Kreamer’s decision to dismiss the case.
“What matters is, he appeared from a place he shouldn’t have been to a regular driver, whether he was an officer or not, he ran out in front of her,” he said while announcing his ruling.
In public statements, Mitchell has defended the conduct of her prosecutors.
“We looked at what our prosecutors did in this case, scrutinized it, and didn’t find any wrongdoing on their part,” Mitchell said during a press briefing in October.
Contact ABC15 Chief Investigator Dave Biscobing at Dave@ABC15.com.
