Michael Poland is in the rare situation of asking to be sent back to federal prison. But almost anything would be an improvement over where he is now. Poland is on death row, set to be executed by the State of Arizona in less than a month. But his lawyers…
Commercial Brake As a several-times judge of the Associated Press news competition for members in California, I believe your Fife Symington coverage was worthy of first place statewide, and am equally impressed with your September 17 takeout on Arizona State University’s “commercialism” (“The Selling of ASU Football,” John Dougherty, September…
You may not know that you’ll be deciding the fate of the Arizona State Lottery on November 3. You’ll be asked to vote on Proposition 304. Vote yes, and the Arizona Lottery will be extended until 2003. Vote no, and you’ll have played your last PowerBall in this state, come…
“No turning around, ladies,” says a beefy detention officer to the seven women slumped in plastic chairs. Behind them, 30 disheveled, sleepy men file into a bleak chamber hidden in the bowels of Madison Street Jail. They fall into rows of more plastic chairs, then all stand briefly as Commissioner…
Just before dawn on April 6, a Phoenix woman we’ll call Susan Johnson told a nurse about a conversation she’d just overheard at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. According to a sealed Avondale Police Department report–a copy of which New Times obtained–Johnson said she’d heard another woman tell a man, “I think…
Finally, the ultimate sport utility vehicle, the kind of ride that says, “I’m from Scottsdale.” The Humvee limo. Thirty-five feet of sleek seats of black leather, glowing neon strips and an overhead array of pinhole stars in a body that looks like a troop carrier. Two bars, one at each…
A doctor thumbcuffs his wife to the steering wheel of the family car during a domestic dispute, holds a gun loaded with hollow-point bullets to her head and threatens to kill her. He’s convicted of a felony and serves six months in jail. But that doesn’t mean he should lose…
Ad Nauseam I would like to congratulate you on your piece concerning the commercialization of ASU football (“The Selling of ASU Football,” John Dougherty, September 17). I’ve been to college football games all over the country, and have never had the sad experience at one like I did here. We…
I have heard so many stories about Carolyn Sawyer’s earthy, manipulative personality that I expect to meet a Janis Joplin-like middle-aged hippie who could charm the birds right down from the trees. Instead, for about half an hour, I sit in a lawyer’s office staring at a silent woman with…
Green Egg on His Face This verse, attributed to one Dale Connelly, was aired on Minnesota Public Radio–ostensibly to provide a means for parents to explain Fellate-Gate to their tots. With sincere apologies to Dr. Seuss (a man who should have been president), the Flash recounts it here: The Bubba…
Every election year, dozens of special interest groups quiz candidates for public office. Questionnaires flow in from groups as diverse as the Christian Coalition, the Sierra Club and the Arizona Association of Manufactured Home Owners. Campaigns are hell. Amid boring chores like stuffing envelopes, circulating petitions, nailing up campaign signs…
A good friend of mine, Mickey Spillane Jr., sent me a pitch for a novel, perhaps a screenplay. I told him it was too improbable, that stuff like this couldn’t happen outside of trash fiction. But he claims it’s all true. Says he heard it from some guy called Starr,…
In 1974, Robert Towne was seething on the lot where his most famous script, Chinatown, was being shot. When I interviewed him at the time, he was appalled at director Roman Polanski’s heavy hand, particularly Polanski’s ending where Evelyn Mulwray, the Faye Dunaway character, gets killed. Twenty-three years later, I…
Public-address announcer Jeff Munn skitters down the stairs to his press-box seat high above Sun Devil Stadium. His heart still pounds after his frenzied drive from downtown Phoenix, where 30 minutes earlier he finished announcing the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball game that had gone 12 innings. Munn slips out of his…
Sex, Lies & More Lies There’s a canker on the presidency–and the Flash has been besieged by loyal readers who pine for a cure. The Flash suggests a Congressional resolution requiring President Clinton to drop his trousers around his ankles and shuffle about the streets of Georgetown, pleading for forgiveness…
A new state audit confirms the same old ills at the Arizona Board of Medical Examiners. BOMEX, created to protect the public from dangerous doctors, suffers from a weak spine and a lack of guts when it comes to disciplining its own. The question now facing lawmakers and the agency’s…
While several reporters listened in on a news conference call, Lisa Allen, spokeswoman for Sheriff Joe Arpaio, broke the law: “Good afternoon, this is Lisa Allen with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday, the third of September at about 12:45. . . . Today, charges were filed against Sean…
As Arizona’s utilities grapple with the problems of deregulation, the chairman of the Arizona Corporation Commission is trying to get more regulation of one power company–and it’s drawn him a slap from the governor. In a July letter, ACC chair Jim Irvin asked Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt to…
No Mere Mr. Nice Guy The article on Travis Lee (“St. Travis at the Bat,” Michael Kiefer, September 3) was awesome. I never knew how “nice” a guy Travis was. I had seen him play many games, but had only seen the baseball player side of Travis, not the man…
Bill Clinton won here in 1996, but two years later Arizona remains a one-party state–Republican. In this election year, the Arizona Democrats are pluckily predicting victory. “You’re gonna have a lot more Democrats to kick around, come November,” chirps the party’s state chairman Mark Fleisher of the statewide offices he…
It’s a little bit disappointing. I was half-expecting and half-hoping to find a place jammed with strobe-lighted rooms full of writhing, entangled naked bodies. Instead, I find an ordinary house on a residential street in Tempe. I knock on the door, and it’s opened by a young man with long,…
The story is the kind no one wants to believe, but everyone hears about. In June, an ASU student accused a Tempe police officer of the worst kind of betrayal of his badge, the worst kind of violation of another person. Alvin Yellowhair says Officer John Ferrin dragged him out…
