In a 2001 murder case, Alyce R. Slim, 63, and her 9-year-old granddaughter, Tiffany Lee, were killed during a carjacking on the Navajo reservation. In that case too, Charlton did not want to file capital murder charges against the defendant, Lezmond Mitchell. He cited cultural sensitivity to the Navajo, who do not believe in the death penalty.
Again, Washington told him to seek the death penalty. Mitchell was convicted, and today he sits on death row.
Charlton further butted heads when he wanted FBI agents to tape-record interviews and confessions, particularly in child molestation cases on Arizona's 21 Indian reservations, something the FBI historically has not done.
Charlton believed the recordings would help sway juries, but the Justice Department ordered him to back down last spring. Charlton offered to resign. Cooler heads agreed that he could do a pilot project for taping confessions. The project never got off the ground.
In testimony in Washington on Tuesday, Charlton said he found "no small amount of irony" in the fact that he was soon terminated.
McKay, the U.S. attorney in Seattle, found himself in the midst of the contested 2004 governor's race between Republican Dino Rossi and Democrat Chris Gregoire.
While the voting dispute was still in progress, McKay took a phone call from Ed Cassidy, chief of staff for Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), then the head of the House Ethics Committee.
McKay said Cassidy started to ask about what federal prosecutors were doing in the election dispute, but McKay cut him off, saying that going further could constitute obstruction of justice. Later, when McKay was interviewed by then-White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers and her deputy, William Kelly, for a possible judgeship, he said they criticized him for "mishandling" things during the recount.
He never got the judicial robes, and he lost his job as prosecutor as well.
Chief U.S. District Judge Robert S. Lasnik of Seattle praised McKay as a "superb U.S. attorney," and said that "for the Justice Department to suggest otherwise is just not fair."
Back in Phoenix, as in the seven other regions where U.S. attorneys have been toppled, many wonder whether other top prosecutors will risk challenging Washington when they meet across the table in future disagreements.
"Think of the chilling effect," said Thomas Gorman, an Arizona defense lawyer who is representing Rios Rico on the capital murder charge. "Those guys who were fired are all Republicans, all team players, all conservative prosecutors. Do you think other prosecutors are going to pound the table?"
richard.serrano@latimes.com
ralph.vartabedian@ latimes.com
sam.howe.verhovek@ latimes.com
Serrano reported from Washington, Vartabedian from Los Angeles and Verhovek from Seattle.
