Jaime Esparza's Confusion In General

On February 14, 2007 it was reported that Jaime Esparza had been to El Paso City Council the day before to ask City Council to assign a special prosecutor to handle County Commissioner Luis Sarinana's class C citation. Esparza said that he needed a special prosecutor because he appears before county commissioners for different matters. City Council told Esparza to take a hike. Aside from the ethics questions raised by Esparza's request discussed in my blog on February 14 (wherein I ask why Esparza feels a need for a special prosecutor for Commissioner Sarinana but he didn't feel the need to get a special prosecutor when he prosecuted former Commissioner Betti Flores just last year) this story raises many questions. One of them being, why did Esparza go to City Council for a special prosecutor as city council has nothing to do with it?

Generally a District Attorney will seek a a special prosecutor when he 1) has a conflict of interest and must ethically bow out of a case, 2) is too chicken to prosecute a case or 3) it is politically expedient for him to get out of a case. When a DA does seek a special prosecutor, the process is he files a motion disqualifying himself and then turns the case over to a judge. The judge then selects the special prosecutor. The prosecutor disqualifying himself does not get to hand pick his successor. Once he is disqualified he is disqualified from doing anything in the case much less looking for the person who will stand in his stead.

So why was Esparza going to City Council when he should have turned the case over to a judge? Did he not know where he was and had just wandered into city council chambers? Will we see him rambling at School board meetings asking them for a special prosecutor next? Has he been spotted on the campuses of EPCC looking for a special prosecutor there? How about the Tiguas? They have courts. Where else might he turn up? Maybe he can go to Juarez City Council. They have a lot of lawyers there. Has he forgotten what he is supposed to do? And if he hasn't forgotten what the simple process is, why did he do what he did? Esparza's quote, after he got run out by City Council, is very telling about his current state of mind. He said, "Now I've got to decide what to do."-what to do?-what to do?-what to do? Didn't he already decide to disqualify himself? Now is he thinking he should UNdisqualify himself? Does he think that is ethical? Is he confused about where to go next? Does he know he needs to go to a judge? Is this the product of clear thinking? And guess who is paying for all this nonsense and confusion? Afraid of your next round of property appraisals? We pay for all his blundering.

Stay tuned.