Jason Halleman, an off-duty Phoenix officer, was sitting at the wheel of his car on a hot summer night in 2021. He held an open bottle of alcohol in his hand.

Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office deputies found Halleman sitting in the driver’s chair and got him up. The deputy was responding to a call about a car that was stopped on a residential street. According to an investigative file, Halleman had bloodshot eyes and slurred speech. He was booked and arrested for driving under the influence. Halleman got into a fight with the deputies during the booking process. They forced him to the ground and then handcuffed him.

Halleman was not charged with any criminal offenses for his July 3rd 2021 arrest. He was not charged with DUI or fighting with sheriff’s officers. He can’t even be charged because the one-year statute expired in his case. After a three-week suspension without pay, Halleman is still a Phoenix Police Department patrol officer. A spokesperson for the police confirmed that. Phoenix New Times .

After the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office was under fire, it remained in place for many months. 2020: 180 misdemeanor cases dropped Halleman’s 2021 arrest for DUIs raises questions about how many other cases fell through the cracks, what the statute of limitations was supposed to expire, and who is responsible.

The Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board is currently investigating Halleman’s situation. AZPOST is a group of mostly police officers and oversees the certification process for police officers. It can suspend or revoke certifications due to misconduct, regardless of how an officer’s employer handled the matter.

The board unanimously voted to open an investigation into Halleman’s case at its September 21 meeting. The board will vote on whether or not to act beyond the Phoenix police suspension when its investigators have reported back.

‘Aggressive and Belligerent’

Arizona’s most serious offense is DUI. The board has suspended, revoked, or denied certification to 54 officers in Arizona so far in 2022. It posts regular bulletins. A DUI was involved in 12 of these cases (roughly 22 percent). According to bulletins, officers may also face AZPOST probes for dishonesty or having sex while on duty.

Halleman, however, was not charged with criminal offenses like the officers being investigated by AZPOST. According to emails and case notes, either law enforcement or prosecutors dropped the ball at some point in the criminal investigation into Halleman. New Times The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office as well as the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office both deny that Halleman is not facing formal charges.

At the September meeting Mike Deltenre, AZPOST Investigator, presented Halleman’s case before the board. Deltenre said that Halleman was unresponsive in his car while deputies searched it. Deltenre explained that Halleman was unresponsive in his car and was holding an unspecified “open liquor container”.

According to AZPOST documents, Halleman said that he had been drinking while he was being held. “A little bit,” he told the deputies. New Times . Later, he told investigators that two Long Island iced-teas were consumed at a Litchfield Park eatery. According to case documents, he failed field sobriety testing and his blood alcohol level was 0.162. This is well above the legal limit for Arizona of 0.08.

Halleman was taken to the MCSO Substation District 3 Substation, West Bell Road in Surprise, for processing. There, tensions developed between Halleman’s and the deputies. Deltenre stated that Halleman became aggressive and belligerent as deputies tried to perform bloodwork on him.

A one-minute clip of footage from the body camera was presented to the board. It was obtained by New Times Halleman shouted at the deputies, using profanity. He tried to fight them until they were defeated, handcuffed and put in a cell. He said, “Shut up your fucking lips!” “You want me to fucking fuck you up?” Fuck me up.”

According to notes in the AZPOST investigation, Halleman claimed that he went to Phoenix for dinner that night. “I was in a car. Evidently, I was under the influence. He said that my behavior with the deputies was something I would never do or have done in my right mind.”

Halleman was not reachable by phone, text message or email.

According to court documents, Halleman’s blood alcohol levels were formally tested and recorded at 0.189. Extreme DUI in Arizona is defined as a blood alcohol level exceeding 0.15 while operating a motor vehicle. This is a misdemeanor with a minimum sentence of 30 days imprisonment.

Halleman’s altercation with deputy officers was not investigated by the sheriff’s department. Calbert Gillett, spokesperson for MCSO, wrote an email to say that Halleman’s actions at the time of booking didn’t meet the legal requirements to add any charges. New Times .

However, the MCSO recommended DUI charges to Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. After Halleman’s arrest in July, but before formal blood tests results were returned, deputies issued Halleman citations for DUI and for using liquor in a motor vehicle.

It is not clear what will happen next.
Officials with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office deny any responsibility for a botched DUI case against a Phoenix police officer. James Deak

Who Stole the Case?

Prosecutors dismissed Halleman’s initial DUI charge in August 2021. Emails revealed that the original case was dismissed by the prosecutor and that the prosecution planned to file new charges after the official blood tests were completed.

Prosecutors claim that the sheriff’s Office never submitted the bloodwork or those charges again, despite MCAO requests. Therefore, no charges were ever filed.

Jennifer Liewer, spokesperson for MCAO, stated that “we have thoroughly looked at this issue.” New Times . “We cannot move forward in a DUI case without having results. We have no evidence that they ever submitted or provided blood results to us.”

The sheriff’s office stated that the deputy in charge did resubmit the recommended charges, one for extreme DUI and one for consuming alcohol inside a vehicle. However, Halleman was not charged by MCAO in time. However, the sheriff’s department did not provide any evidence to support that claim.

Emails and notes taken from Halleman’s file at MCAO. New Times This video provided a glimpse of the back-and forth between the sheriff’s department and the prosecutors in the case. Ellen Hoskins was the prosecutor in the case and wrote to Deputy Kevin Wallace to request that he submit bloodwork to her so she could refile it. She told him, “I want that one.”

However, months later, the prosecutor didn’t have the results.

“Deputy Wallace called me. “Deputy Wallace called me. Someone had told him that the State had dropped these charges. He wanted to know why,” Hoskins wrote in Halleman’s case file. “I explained to him that I still need blood results and that he would send them to me. This will allow me to refile.

In AZPOST case records, however, investigators stated that they believed MCSO did resubmit charges. Armed with test results, the evidence for the extreme DUI charge, Also, the sheriff’s office claimed it submitted the charges on time.

“MCSO filed DUI charges within the timeframes as specified by statute. Gillett sent an email to Gillett stating that MCAO should be contacted to explain why the case was not prosecuted. New Times
A backlog of DUI cases continues to build under County Attorney Rachel Mitchell. Katya Schwenk

There is a backlog of DUI cases

When New Times Deltenre was not available to answer my questions about Halleman’s innocence.

Matt Giordano (executive director of AZPOST) did make a short statement via email. He stated that he did not have any additional information, except that the case was never prosecuted.

Liewer described the information in the AZPOST file as “concerning.” She stated that she was unable to determine if prosecutors received information about the bloodwork. However, it was provided to AZPOST.

It is not the first time Maricopa County law enforcement and prosecutors have bungled DUI cases. Media reports about the 180 cases dropped — including DUIs — were a scandal under former County Attorney Allister Adel. Adel resigned March 2022 Shortly after the news broke, it was reported.

These 180 cases date back to 2020. They were largely filed by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office as well as the Arizona Department of Public Safety. The issue of bungled cases is not just a recent one. There are many ways to get involved in bungled cases. 2018 case MCAO also dropped the case that involved a fatal drunk driving accident.

Rachel Mitchell, County Attorney, has pledged to clean up her office following the scandal-ridden tenure that her predecessor had. However, the statute of limitations in Halleman’s expired in July 2022 — while Mitchell was in charge. The backlog in DUI cases continues to grow Under her watch .

Liewer argued that Halleman’s case was different from those of the older dropped cases. They were all on us. She said that those were in our case file system, waiting to be charged. But they sat in the computer system and weren’t charged. She explained that Halleman’s case was not like this.

Halleman has so far escaped with a three week suspension.