This is pretty egregious. The guy is throwing out a lot of excuses, but it’s hard to imagine any justification for this (the bizarre stuff starts about 1:30 in):

From Reason:

Cuccia was justifiably upset, and requested a hearing. That hearing was last week.  According to freelance journalist Nick Martin, who writes at the Heat City blog, Stoddard’s story changed several times over the course of the hearing. His main defense was apparently that he spotted “keywords” on the document that made him think it contained threats to the courtroom. The problem with that story is that if you watch the video, he swiped the document from the middle of the file. It wasn’t lying in open view. Which leaves open the question of why, in open court, he went snooping through a defense attorney’s file in the first place.

...

It gets weirder. According to Heat City, the purpose of Friday’s hearing was to determine if Stoddard had violated the attorney-client privilege of Cuccia’s client, Antonio Lozano, and/or if Stoddard should be held in contempt of court. But Judge Gary Donahoe ruled that because the swiped document itself is protected by attorney-client privilege Stoddard wouldn’t be able to mount his “keyword” defense, because the contents of the document can’t be divulged. According to Heat City, Donahoe said Lozano would have to wave attorney-client privilege if he wanted to proceed with the hearing on whether Stoddard violated his rights.

If this is an accurate portrayal of the hearing, stand back and admire the absurdity: Judge Donahoe is refusing to punish Stoddard for possibly violating Lozano’s attorney-client privilege unless Lozano waives his attorney-client privilege.

(emphasis in the original)

That italicized part is the kicker. Something is really wrong here. Regardless of what was in the document, what was his probable cause for even going and looking at a document in the attorney’s file? It’s not even a plain-sight exception (assuming he even had any reason to be there in the first place, from the other side of the room); he clearly pulls the paper from the file to read it.

Based on what I’ve seen so far, the criminal defendant almost certainly has a civil cause of action against this deputy for a due-process violation. They’d probably name the county as well. All of which likely results in this guy getting plead down and/or a sentence reduction to get it settled.

And rather than disciplining him, the Sheriff’s Office is backing him up:

Sheriff’s Deputy Chief Jack MacIntyre insists that nothing improper was done with the photocopied documents, which a judge has since determined were in fact subject to attorney-client privilege. MacIntyre told Phoenix’s Channel 12, “The original papers were given back to the defense attorney, and the copy that was made was sealed in an envelope and given to county counsel. When county counsel read them, they gave them back to the defense attorney. Nobody from the Sheriff’s Office ever read them.”

We’ll have to take the Sheriff’s Office’s word for that.

Umm, wait a second. “Nobody read them”? Then how did he know there was something to be seen, copied and given to the prosecution? And, oh, BTW, you don’t get to decide what documents the defense discloses to the prosecution.

This guy needs to be fired; not sure about the guy he gave the paper to for copying (who may well not have had any idea what the deal was). I doubt he did anything criminal, but he needs to lose his job.

H/T: The Volokh Conspiracy