Former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley said Wednesday that although some turnover is expected in a new administration, what happened at the Pinal County
Attorney’s Office is “extraordinary.”
In one of his first official acts as Pinal County attorney, Lando Voyles has fired nearly a dozen lawyers from his office and reduced the number of attorneys there by 25 percent.
Sources say a human-resources official notified the terminated employees by phone just before the close of business Monday.
Among those who confirmed their termination were Paul Ahler, charging bureau chief — who headed Voyles’ transition team and gave Voyles his first prosecuting job in 2003 when Ahler was chief deputy at the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office — and decorated trial attorney Sylvia Lafferty. Lafferty, who was weeks shy of marking 20 years as a Pinal County prosecutor, was one of three lawyers in the previous administration qualified to prosecute a capital case. A second attorney who could work those cases, chief deputy Richard Platt, retired in December.
“He (Voyles) has a right to be bringing in individuals of his choice, but those generally are very few and far between,” Romley said. “What you really need to look at is who he’s getting rid of. If these are career prosecutors, individuals who have given a lifetime to that, you have to ask yourself why, what is the basis for letting them go? If it’s just because you didn’t like their politics, that’s not healthy and you’re going to find he’s going to have a difficult time handling the day-to-day matters of the office.”
Voyles did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Information from The Arizona Republic
