The Pima County Attorney’s Office says it filed suit Friday against the federal government to gain access to a Tucson murder suspect in federal custody.
The county prosecuting office filed the lawsuit in federal court, seeking access to Julio Cesar Aguirre, 42. County and federal prosecutors have been sparring over which jurisdiction should prosecute him.
Pima County Attorney Laura Conover has said she worries Aguirre — who was previously deported to Mexico after an Arizona prison term — will be deported again before facing a criminal trial by her office in the shooting death of a 70-year-old man during a carjacking attempt and crime spree in midtown Tucson on June 30.
Conover
A Pima County grand jury indicted Aguirre July 25 on first-degree murder charges in the death of Ricky Miller Sr., and on charges including attempted robbery, aggravated assault and burglary related to the crime spree, which victimized six local residents, the County Attorney’s Office says.
But the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Arizona has said Aguirre also faces federal charges in connection with the June 30 spree: attempted carjacking, using a firearm in a violent crime, and being an undocumented person with a firearm.
“So far, federal authorities have not given Pima County prosecutors access to Aguirre for court proceedings brought forward by the state,” the County Attorney’s Office said in a news release Friday. “For six weeks now, the federal government and its newly appointed U.S. Attorney for Arizona have inexplicably ignored six local victims and denied them justice.”
“We are simply asking for access” to Aguirre “so we can prosecute him for the crimes the federal government has no apparent intention to prosecute,” the county news release said.
Timothy Courchaine, the U.S. attorney for Arizona, said in a previous news release that Aguirre committed crimes under federal jurisdiction, “starting with illegal immigration, escalating to prohibited possession of a firearm, and culminating in the death of an innocent individual,” which is “why the United States Attorney’s Office takes this matter so seriously.”
Conover has said the U.S. Attorney’s Office rarely handles homicides that result from street crime like this incident, and that she worries all the victims of the crime spree may not get justice under federal jurisdiction.
Aguirre had been deported to Mexico in 2013 after a term in an Arizona prison, but was living in the United States at the time of the June 30 crimes.
