A judge dismissed charges against two Mexican men in the first trial of illegal immigrants charged as conspirators under a new Arizona smuggling law.
The law targets immigrant smugglers, but a prosecutor has said that those who paid to be sneaked into the country also can be charged as conspirators to the crime.
After two days of testimony, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Thomas O’Toole on July 11 dismissed charges against the two men, who were among the first 48 immigrants to be charged as conspirators under the 10-month-old law.
Judge O’Toole said prosecutors didn’t provide substantial evidence of a conspiracy, and likened the situation to people traveling independently of each other on a commercial airplane.
“You happen to be in a vehicle with other people on the same mission,” Judge O’Toole said.
The judge, however, declined to dismiss a charge against a Mexican man who is accused of working as a smuggler.
The man had told a grand jury that he had entered the country illegally and drove a smuggling van carrying some of the 48 immigrants in exchange for a reduction in his fee.
The immigrants were arrested in early March in remote desert about 50 miles west of Phoenix.
Twenty-eight of the 48 immigrants have pleaded guilty to the lower-tier felony of solicitation to commit immigrant smuggling. A dozen cases were dismissed, and a handful of others await trial, according to court records.
It’s unclear the effect the dismissals will have on other cases.
Joey Hamby, an attorney for one of the immigrants awaiting trial, said he will ask a judge to throw out his client’s case. “It’s exactly the same evidence and the same legal conclusions, and it should be the same result,” Mr. Hamby said.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment on the dismissals.
Immigrant advocates say the law was never meant to be used against the customers of smugglers. Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas says his approach is needed for holding rank-and-file illegal immigrants accountable.
The two immigrants whose cases were thrown out — 29-year-old Gustavo G. Unbalejo and 21-year-old Antonio Hernandez — were expected to be turned over to immigration agents for deportation.
The trial of the accused smuggler, 33-year-old Javier Ruiz, was expected to continue.
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