Four years ago, in an effort to fix up the neighborhood, the City of Phoenix tore down Steven Clark’s modest house and built him a brand-new one. He is not inclined to forgive the favor. The two-story brick and stucco home on 13th Way, just south of East Indian School…

Like an errant child, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has been playing political games for the past two months in which young defendants have become pawns, Juvenile Court officials contend. At issue is whether prosecutors are filing unwarranted transfer requests seeking to move youths into the adult Superior Court system…

DAVID HANS SCHMIDT begins each day staring at the wall above his couch, where the Great News Volcano hangs. It is a six-foot-tall painting, which Schmidt commissioned, of a volcano in fiery eruption. Rising from the plume, painted in large letters, is the word News.” Every morning I play the…

So just who has been paying Schmidt for his services over the past few years? A random sampling from a list of current and former clients provided by Schmidt indicates it has been a mixed bag of small businesses. Some liked what he did for them, while others were not…

When the Brophy Broncos ripped out five runs in the first inning of a recent regional high school baseball game, their opponents and longtime rivals from St. Mary’s knew they were in for a long night. Both teams were already assured spots in the state 5A championship tournament when they…

For almost a year, Jerry Holt has worked in bureaucratic limbo as Governor Fife Symington’s commissioner of the Arizona Department of Real Estate, running the agency and awaiting word on whether the state Senate will confirm his appointment. Now, with a hearing on his confirmation likely next week in the…

The ax fell with scant warning at Community Legal Services last week. The nonprofit law center that serves as a last resort for poor clients fired one-fourth of its staff, including four attorneys, in the face of a hefty drop in funding. Long in precarious financial straits, CLS decided that…

Few of the 40 or so public officials gathering in a cozy auditorium last week for a half-day forum on pesticides were aware of the poisoned political air engulfing their seemingly benign gathering. Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy, in cooperation with the three state agencies most responsible…

As a boy, Tim Hilliard watched the Palo Verde nuclear power plant rise from the desert west of Phoenix, claiming the flatland where he once rode horses. Like many of his neighbors in the sparsely settled countryside, Hilliard was never fully comfortable in its looming shadow. Now, Hilliard blames the…

I would not enter into that agreement as a lawyer in a thousand years, period,” attorney David Gage, a seasoned member of the state’s personal-injury bar, would later testify. Mr. Harris has a clear conflict of interest under this agreement, and it is an intolerable conflict of interest, in my…

WALKING OUT of Maricopa County Superior Court in late 1984, Anthony Abril Jr. should have been a happy man. A jury had just awarded the 32-year-old hairdresser $1.3 million in damages from his insurance company, a remarkable verdict considering that Abril had sued over the distress he suffered after running…

For bar leaders, normally tightlipped about everything, to encourage the Republic to review his case file was an outrage of the highest order, Levine says. In this instance, the bar chose to fight Levine’s argument against merit selection by attacking his credibility. Turney, who was not at the meeting but…

In order to adequately protect the security of this country, it is requested that authority be granted to place a technical surveillance at his current residence and at any future address to which he may move.” Levine was not interested in talking with Soviet agents. He was trying to find…