Kim Arshi, one of the best and most experienced of the assistant circuit attorneys, resigned from the CAO Tuesday.
While she should have been enjoying maternity leave, her name was being dragged through the mud for repeatedly not appearing in court on a murder case assigned to her and having the ignominy of it being dismissed by a judge.
This whole mess, as it turns out, was not Ms. Arshi’s fault, and is certainly not a reflection on her conscientiousness. In fact, it’s doubtful Ms. Arshi even knew about this case because it was assigned to her after she began maternity leave.
The CAO, it appears, had been assigning cases to her while she was out on leave. Approximately 30 very serious felony cases, including a death penalty case, were transferred to her while she was away, knowing full-well that she wasn’t available to do anything on those cases. And, the CAO then didn’t even bother to take steps to provide court coverage on these cases!
While the press is just getting wind of this, many of the judges and practitioners in the 22nd Judicial Circuit were already aware this was going on. It is commonly believed that the cases were not assigned by the CAO to Ms. Arshi by mistake, but rather something more devious: these cases were being assigned to Ms. Arshi precisely because she was on maternity leave as part of a plan by the CAO. With the CAO being so understaffed, assigning cases to someone on maternity leave would effectively result in all those cases being placed on hold until Ms. Arshi returned, and so other assistant prosecutors would not have their workloads increased by having them parceled out to them. Presumably after Ms. Arshi returned, all those cases could then be reassigned to these other prosecutors, who would then be able to seek continuances to allow them time to prepare using the excuse that they had just been assigned the case.
That might seem like a clever tactic by the CAO to game the system except it deprives the accused of their rights to due process and to a speedy trial, and interferes with the administration of justice. Not to mention it throws one of their finest under the bus.
Fox News