>> Coming up next on Arizona horizon, reaction to the death of former Maricopa county attorney Allister Adele.

That's next on Arizona horizon.

Welcome to Arizona horizon.

I'm Ted Simons.

The select committee investigating the January 6th riot at the U.S. capitol today formerly requested Arizona Congressman Andy Biggs to tell the committee about his involvement in strategy sessions at the White House with former President Trump's chief of staff along with other meetings that lead to the 2021 riot.

They want to meet and learn what Biggs knew about stop-the-steel movement and the panel wants to learn to learn about President Biden's victory from being certified.

They called this a sham, compared it to the Salem witch trials and said he would not participate.

The Supreme Court said Boston violated the rights for a group wanting to raise a Christian flag outside of city hall.

They wanted to raise it on a flagpole.

They ruled the flagpole noted many were others to raise it and they ruled the city could not discriminate on the Christian group's viewpoint.

And health news, a new study shows most middle aged and older adults should try to get seven hours of sleep a night and those who hit that seven-hour mark are likely to have stronger memories and a better ability to learn new things and shows older adults who have trouble faulting asleep have a greater risk of dementia.

And former Maricopa county Allister Adele Saturday at the age of 45.

Her family confirmed her death citing health complications and died six weeks after she resigned including absences due to alcohol and eating disorders.

Former Maricopa county attorney Rick Romley was among those and called for her resignation and joins us now.

Good to have you and thanks for joining us and condolences on the loss of a friend.

Did the news surprise you?

>> I was shocked.

I did not expect it.

I mean, and then, of course, the sadness that set it.

You know, her two children, I think, the loss of the mother at that, so young.

Her children are young.

And it was a shock and I'm very sad about it.

>> She was the first woman to serve as Maricopa county attorney and do you think she felt added pressure in that position?

>> The position itself, there's a lot of pressure, no matter what.

You have a great responsibility, but being the first one is a bit of a trailblazer and she was the first woman and it probably did add pressure to it.

>> Do you think there were too many expectations put on her?

>> There's a lot expectations put upon individuals as posts such as that, but yeah, probably more so, especially with the challenges she had going in.

I mean, the Juan Martinez matter, where there were allegations of sexual misconduct and probably more pressure.

>> A high pressure prosecutor and what kind of prosecutor was Allister Adele.

>> I thought she was a rising star and that's the reason I endorsed and supporterred her.

She was very articulate and able to synthesize complicated issues and make it understandable to the average person.

I thought she had the world before her and I was happy to endorse her.

>> Initially, you thought she would make for a good county attorney.

>> I did.

>> Was she a good county attorney early on?

>> She did many things I thought were good.

She turned the office around in many aspects.

>> Why?

>> The adoption program with the county attorney's office had gone away and so she recreated that, which is a real asset to the community, a free service, creating a public integrity department, which I thought was absolutely critical within a law enforcement office, so she did those types of things and trying to -- when individuals are diverted out of the justice system to get then, say, drug treatment, she found ways to be able to defer their costs so that those that maybe didn't have the monies were able to not have to pay for it.

So she was a trailblazer in those way.

>> Did she change in office?

>> Well, I think she did.

Not many years, but as I saw the time go by, I talked to her on a number of occasions and I wasn't sure that she was grasping some of the issues that I was trying to guide her towards maybe considering implementing or taking a little bit stronger lead on.

>> Yeah, and you saw that increasingly or -- >> Increasingly, and, in fact, sometimes I wasn't comprehending where I was trying to go and I wasn't sure if it was myself.

>> This was not an official leave of absence and I asked her this numerous times.

Why not take an official leave of absence and she said it wasn't necessary because she could take the time of, et cetera, et cetera.

If she had taken that time, do you think this would be a different story?

>> I do.

If she would have addressed her drinking issues, I thought she could come back stronger.

Who isn't have faults and challenges and I thought if she could overcome her drinking problem, that America -- you know, they forgive and I thought she would be stronger and I wish she would have done that.

>> Was she afraid to show vulnerability thinking the job wouldn't be there when she came back.

>> I think she would get that back if she overcame her drinking problem.

I think she didn't realize the seriousness of the problem and that's what it was.

>> People in the department, from what you've heard, were people there helping her or was it becoming an antagonistic kind of atmosphere, a toxic atmosphere, where somebody who did need help wasn't getting it?

>> I know that there were individuals that were very concerned about her not being at work quite often, to the being able to address some of the complex issues coming up and I talked, for example, Rachel Mitchell.

They met with her on numerous occasions, trying to help and guide her.

And, you know, you can only take the horse to the well and you can't make them drink and I think it came to the point where the office was failing in some of the responsibilities and that's why they wrote that letter.

I don't think it was antagonistic at all in the beginning.

I think they reached out and they had to make that tough call.

I mean truth to power.

Having to write a letter, and difficult it had to be.

>> It had to be difficult to call for her resignation.

Again, when I asked her about your call, she seemed disappointed and said, I wish he would have talked to me first.

Do you think -- again, where people there helping her or did it just seem as though you mentioned with the people in the department, she didn't want that help?

>> Well, let me, first of all -- I did not talk to her directly, but indirectly, I did.

When problems were manifesting itself, I got a call from a close friend and we talked about her challenges and difficulties and he agreed, we need to be frank and needed to consider resigning.

I said I'll call her and he said, Rick, let me do it because he was so close with her and please make sure she understands that I'm on board and she needs to put the priority of herself and well-being herself and her family first.

I didn't talk to her directly, but I thought she was told my concerns through the individual that I spoke to at the very beginning.

>> Do you think she was treated fairly?

>> I do.

Look, it's hard.

You know, she had a position of such responsibility and you want to be empathetic to make sure she understands to get the help.

In the end, she had a job to do the public.

There are today motions in court in which the allegation of death has been sought on a number of individuals and they're trying to say -- they're challenging whether or not Allister Adele was of the right frame of mind to state that should be a given.

>> Last question, and we thank you for your time, what can be learned by this and relatively quickly, if you can, but what can be learned by something like this?

>> I don't want to be too judgmental, but it's like with any election.

There has to be a screening process.

We all have our challenges and weaknesses, but I think we need to be be a little bit more -- scrutiny needs to be placed on the individual a little more.

>> Rick, always a pleasure.

>> Thank you.

>> And up next on Arizona horizon, the state is on schedule to conduct its first execution in eight years.

>> Convicted murderer Clarence Hispanics Dixen of a murder in 1978 within the first in Arizona and joining us is Paul bender.

Paul, thank you and we appreciate your time and who is Clarence Dixen?

>> A murderer who spent most of his time in jail, of the Navajo nation.

Committed a number of offenses.

The most interesting thing about this case to me, it was in 1977.

He was on trial for an assault and the judge was Sandra O'Connor and she was sitting without a jury and she found him not guilty by reason of insanity because she thought he was insane and the rule was that she then remanded him to the custody of the county attorney should was supposed to start civil commitment proceedings again him because by reason of insanity, you go to a mental institution.

They didn't do that.

They let him go.

Two days later, he committed this murder.

That's tragic.

But it also tells me something about him.

Two days after he gets out of jail how an assault charge, he kills somebody.

>> So we go through that and we have a clemency board here recently and supposed to look over all of this stuff, Paul, and they considered mental competence and the board voted to deny the reprieve and what are your thoughts on that?

>> Well, my thoughts on that are that it's a mistake and as far as I can tell, he was really crazy and if you don't execute insane people and that's the rule in the country, as well as the state, I don't think you should be executed and that has not yet been totally determined.

Tomorrow there's a hearing in the Pinal Supreme Court about whether he's competent to be executed.

And I think there will be a strong case he's not competent to be executed.

The rule is -- I should say, I think he's not competent, but under the current rule, he may be held to be competent.

Because the rule is they can execute you as long you know you're executed and you know why.

You don't have to understand what you did.

You don't have to think you did it or feel guilty, but if you know that you're executed and if you know the reason is they think committed a murder, that's enough to make you competent.

That's why the clemency board found he was executed because he understands what's happening to him but he's not sane and never been sane as far as I can tell.

He's lived a violent life, no control over himself and he's done nothing useful with himself.

The notion that's killing himself 45 years after this crime -- he's blind by the way -- it seems to me to make no sense to do that.

He'll never get out of jail.

Not discouraging anything by executing him.

The only reason is to somehow satisfy the relevance of the woman that he killed.

I can understand that concern.

But somehow 45 years later for the government to just deliberately kill somebody who is not a danger to anybody now and who never has been fully sane strikes me as wrong.

And that's the issue before the county court tomorrow.

>> Right, right.

And if this goes through, the first use of the death penalty in eight years and the last one was, what lethal injection and a botched case.

>> It was botched.

>> It took a couple of hours and correct me if I am wrong, was he given a choice?

He didn't make a choice, did he.

>> He declined to choose and the fault position, you get lethal injection and he could have chamber.

I read that the state renovated the gas chamber and useable if he had made that choice and he didn't make that choice.

Arizona, I think, is the only state where you can still be executed by gas.

>> Yes.

So what do you expect at this hearing?

What do you think will happen?

>> As I said before, but from what I understand, he is not in his right mind.

He has never been in his right mind and not a danger now and if you really mean that you don't -- you are not executing sane people and somebody who can't live a normal life.

I don't think he can.

He fits within the category of insane people.

The law, as you said before, the exclusion from execution much narrower than that and the law requires that you understand you'll be executed you understand why.

You don't have to agree with it, but you understand that hey, they executed me because I committed a murder.

You may not remember the murder and even though you may not think you did it and you may be sorry, but it's just you're alert to know they will execute you and you know why, that's enough.

And that may make a lot of sense in a lot of cases, but something that happened 45 years ago, it has no deterrent effect and nobody in the expect that will feel that he's like them.

So that if you execute him, that will create a deterrent effect and just a useless execution.

>> Paul bender, thank you so much, as always.

>> You're welcome, Ted.

>> Inflation subpoena and GDP is down and increasing speculation that a recession could be brewing and that's a lot to be concerned about, but how concerned should we about and we ask ASU economist Dennis Hoffman.

>> Great to see you again.

>> Let's start with inflation because that is a buzz word and everyone is talking about it and how much is it impacting our economy?

>> Try mortgage rates, 30-year mortgage rates, and in part, because of inflation and the war against inflation that the fed is about to engage in.

You know, we've got mortgage rates, 30-year mortgage approaching 6%.

We've got expensive groceries and expensive everything and that's hitting low-income people really, really hard.

Now we have stagflation.

I love these '70s.

>> I remember that from a long time ago.

>> This was the evil word of the '70s.

Accompanied by inflation.

>> How does that happen?

>> It's rare, actually.

Because usually inflation is spurred on by a growing economy, but when you can sputter as an economy, but you can get hit by supplies like oil shocks of the '70s that cause prices to spike and that's a double whammy.

So we actually had stagflation.

We're not there yet and could we get there?

Absolutely.

But we're not like we were in the '70s.

>> Despite the fact GDP went down, they're saying what underpins the economy right now, those things are still strong.

>> Right.

Very quickly, consumption and investment were strong.

We got killed by net exports and so, it's usually a pretty small piece of the puzzle, but this time it turned out to be big and we continued to import a lot, but our exports fell off the table.

We couldn't export to Asia because they were locked down and we couldn't export to Russia and our exports continued.

Remember the backlog of ships last fall?

>> Yes, yes.

>> Some of them didn't unload until January and the imports doubled up in January.

>> The phoenix inflation rate, Dennis, the last report was 10.9%, the highest with any metropolitan area in the country.

Correct me if I'm wrong, does that me a dollar today buys 11% than the same time in 2020.

>> Yes.

>> Why so much?

>> It's dominated by the cost of shelter.

We have the highest housing price inflation in the nation.

Housing went up faster in phoenix than anywhere else and that translated immediately into higher rents, higher housing prices and that goes into shelter and that hits us.

We kept our economy open more than a number of other places did and people needed to commute to get to jobs and they couldn't get new cars because of the semi shortage.

So used car prices went up and went up faster in Phoenix because we needed those cars more than, say, economies where folks could sit home and zoom from the home office.

>> You mentioned stagnation -- >> Stagflation.

>> Unfortunately, Mr. Pollyanna can't rule that out.

We were here in December saying an eight out of ten year and I heard a lot of follow-up.

Yeah, we agree and the only thing that can get in the way is world war III.

But we can revisit in history, 1982 when Paul Volcker and Ronald Reagan says the inflation is gone.

What are you hearing about today?

You're hearing about 50 basis in June, 50 basis points at the next meeting.

You're seeing interest rate targets out of the fed that take rates up two and 3% above where we thought they would be headed prior to the onset of all of this craziness.

>> Does that suggest bonds attractive?

>> Be careful with purchasing bonds today and you have to think about wait until the rates go up and get back into the money market certificates and hey, maybe a passbook savings account and pay something other than zero.

So down the road, there's shining lights.

Equities struggle and employment could struggle.

We talk about the fed threading the needle here or being able to sail the ship between the rocks and that's going to be very difficult this time.

>> Dennis, good information, as all and Mr. Pollyanna, thank you, sir, we appreciate it.

>> Thank you, sir.

>> And that is it for now.

I'm Ted Simons and thank you for joining us.

You have a great evening.