APS lawyers' ethical misconduct; you be the judge.

For the purposes of this post, ethical means ethical as it is conceptualized APS student standards of conduct; the Pillars of Character Counts!; a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct and decision making.  Because the Pillars are the standards of conduct for students, they are the standards of conduct for their senior-most role models; the senior administration and school board.

The "leadership" of the APS cannot pretend to be accountable to high standards as role models and claim then different, lower standards as defendants in legal proceedings.  If they think it's OK, then they need to explain exactly why it is OK, and in words any child can understand.

Bralley by Mary Ellen Broadrick

APS is being sued by Mark Bralley.  Bralley is a photojournalist and blogger.

He is suing APS over their several violations of his civil rights as a citizen and as a member of the press.

The Journal is yet to cover the story.

Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz and the Journal have yet to acknowledge the litigation.  Co-incidentally, that litigation is not going to go well for the leadership of the APS nor for students, teachers and taxpayers.

The Journal, as a newspaper of record, has an obligation to inform the democracy when their power and resources are at stake.  The Journal knows the drill; they covered the filing of my complaints, link, albeit lacking candor, forthrightness and honesty.

Bralley is litigating pro se.  The rules of court procedure recognize that pro se litigants have little or no experience suing powerful people and their lawyers.  The rules discourage lawyers from using the rules against the interests of justice.

Nevertheless, they are.  APS lawyers are trying to use the rules to obfuscate Bralley's efforts to hold their clients accountable for their incompetence and corruption.  They claim summons were not properly served, and therefore Bralley's several complaints should be dismissed.  They claim the summons were served on the wrong person.

The truth is, Bralley made a considerable effort to determine the identity of the person(s) who were authorized to accept service.  At every opportunity, APS lawyers Art Melendres, Luis Robles, and Pat Allen had an ethical, and it can be argued - a legal obligation, to answer his questions candidly, forthrightly and honestly.  They could have when asked, simply told him the name of the person(s) who could accept service. They did not.

Melendres is APS' Chief Counsel.
He and his firm, the Modrall, have been making a killing off APS and taxpayers for decades.

They make so much money litigating on behalf of APS, that Melendres in sworn deposition, could not recollect within a hundred thousand dollars, how much.

He finally settled on a figure somewhere north of a $1.25M annually.


Defendant Marty Esquivel gets his own lawyer Luis Robles, link.

When Robles was presented with Bralley's Complaint, the subject of its extraordinary length came up.  Robles expressed his glee, indicating its length simply meant that many "more billable hours".

Billed at what rate, and under the oversight of whom exactly, still to be determined.

Only Esquivel gets his own lawyer, the rest of the defendants share the counsel of one lawyer. one Pat Allen, link..

It is unclear how much money has been spent, or even if they are working on signed contracts, link.

The leadership of the APS, the school board and senior leadership teams are litigating, literally, to save their individual and collective ass.

It is their combined intention that they will not be held accountable for their conduct and competence, to any standards higher than the law.

Is it legal?  They will argue that it is.

In the meantime, they tell students that their character is forfeit should they be unwilling to do more than the law requires and less than the law allows.

They are spending hundreds of thousands of operational dollars to pay lawyers to create cost is no object defenses against legitimate complaints, and to except them from honest accountability to any higher standard of conduct than the law.  In fact, their record is one of a lack of accountability even to the law.

The law is the lowest standard of conduct.  It is the standard that every higher standard, is higher than.  Higher standards means higher standards than the law.

So who says the leadership of the APS is accountable to higher standards of conduct?

The leadership of the APS donned that mantel when they decided to establish and enforce higher standards of conduct on students.

Students are expected, according to school board policy as expressed in the APS Student Behavior Handbook, link, to hold themselves accountable to higher standards of conduct;

students are expected to model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts! Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring, and Citizenship.

Unless you accept their manifest position that senior-leaders in the APS have no real obligations as role models of student standards of conduct; they are accountable to higher standards of conduct than the law.  They are required to behave and litigate ethically.

Evidence will show that Bralley made an earnest effort to serve process and that, that effort was obfuscated unethically and as a judge will determine, illegally.  Link to Bralley's Complaint, Motions to dismiss, objections and affidavits.

Did APS lawyers hamper Plaintiff Bralley by misdirection and by failure to respond, thereby avoiding service?

Did they actively or passively obstruct service by resorting to willful perjury, subornation of perjury and conspiracy?

These are important questions.  If the people are to hold school board members accountable at election, for the conduct and competence of the administration the board oversees, the people have a need; moreover they have a right to the truth about the conduct and competence of senior administrators; public servants whose salaries they pay.

The establishment's media has turned their collective back on their obligation to fully inform the democracy.  Whether complicit or complacent in the cover up of a standards and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS, they have betrayed the trust placed in them by this community.

Are APS administrative and executive standards of conduct and competence adequate?  Is there honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence?

Whether there are high enough standards and swift and certain accountability is newsworthy.

• It is newsworthy if there are adequate standards and accountability to protect the public interests.
• It is more newsworthy if there are not.

Either way, it's newsworthy.




photos Mark Bralley