Liberal Forum

An Arizona judge on July 9 dismissed with prejudice the murder case against an elderly ranch owner charged in the shooting death of an illegal immigrant on Jan. 30, 2023...

Prosecution attorneys had filed a motion to dismiss the case without prejudice, leaving the door open to retry the defendant at a future date if the evidence or “political situation” changed.
However, Judge Fink said a procedural rule required scheduling a new trial within 60 days of the declared mistrial.
He said that to leave the case open-ended amounted to “harassment” of the defendant and gave the prosecution an unfair advantage.
“The court finds that the state is not able to articulate a reasonable basis for holding this case ‘open’ with a dismissal without prejudice,” Judge Fink wrote.
“The interests of justice are not advanced where the only thing to be accomplished by a dismissal without prejudice, where there is no possibility that a re-trial will occur, is the harassment of the defendant.
“For those reasons, the interests of justice call for finality.”
https://www.ntd.com/judge-dismisses-mur ... dium=email

what's going on here? another common sense judge...go figure...