The Arizona Supreme Court upheld the two-year suspension of a prosecutor who was fired for her controversial prosecution of Black Lives Matter rioters in the fall of 2020.
Former Maricopa County prosecutor April Sponsel lost her law license after she pursued "criminal gang" charges against leftists who illegally blocked a roadway in Phoenix.
The Arizona Supreme Court upheld the suspension Tuesday, meaning she will lose her license for two years. The court did not share a written opinion.
The rioters threw smoke bombs, shined lights in officers' faces and used umbrellas to hide their identities. When told to disperse, they ignored officers' commands.
Authorities argued the rioters - who chanted "ACAB," short for "all cops are bastards" - colluded like a gang to avoid arrest and attack cops. Like gangs typically do, they wore the same color - black.
"These particular groups they try to make it as difficult as possible for us to arrest them," Phoenix police Sgt. Douglas McBride told an evidentiary hearing. "They try every tactic they can to protect each other from the police and inflict as much pain as they can on us while we're trying to effect an arrest."
The rioters were charged with assisting a gang, rioting, obstructing a thoroughfare, unlawful assembly, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and resisting arrest.
All of the charges were eventually dropped after Sponsel's case fell under scrutiny from ABC15, a local left-leaning news station sympathetic to the rioters.
In 2022, Sponsel was fired by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office for a "disturbing pattern of excessive charging." Sponsel then lost her law license in December 2023 after a lengthy trial, where some of the defendants testified as witnesses.
One of the people charged as a gang member was a photographer who took pictures of the riot. The man, Ryder Collins, said he stumbled on the riot by coincidence after taking pictures of the sunset in downtown Phoenix.
Another rioter referred to Collins by his first name, which made Sponsel suspicious, the Tennessee Star noted.
Sponsel maintained her innocence throughout the saga, testifying that she was correct to treat the group as a gang. She said there was reason to believe Collins was a "legal observer" who was documenting the riot on behalf of the group.
"If you take that away, they're still a gang based on all of the other things were looking at and we knew,” she said.
