April 06, 2005

Officer of the court down: who let him down?

Back in October, I wrote about Justin Blair, a promising young Maricopa County criminal defense lawyer, who was shot and killed as an innocent bystander to a road rage incident.

His family and friends are asking, why was his killer out on the street?

The shooter was on felony probation for a drive by shooting in 2003. While on probation, he was later charged in a felony stabbing in 2004 -- yet he remained out of jail.

It was six months later, when Police say Alonso pulled out an assault rifle, fired up to 15 shots, striking multiple passengers in a vehicle he was aiming at and killing Blair who was riding in a car driving the other way.

Radoff said, "Justin was a lawyer, he swore to uphold the system, you know he would have defended Alonso given the chance and it failed him, it failed me, it failed Alonso."


This Phoenix TV station webpage has the article and a video clip.

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