Coconino County Attorney Bill Ring has announced that he will not be seeking re-election in 2024.
After leading his office through the COVID-19 pandemic and holding key roles on the Arizona Attorney Advisory Board and the National Association of District Attorneys, Ring decided it was time to start a new chapter.
His office is located on the third floor of the Courthouse in downtown Flagstaff. The clock tower of the Coconino County Superior Court is very prominent in the room, mostly looking like an extra addition of a wall clock on the wall behind the bookshelves.
When Ring is behind his desk, windows along his right and front walls offer nearly panoramic views of the busy street below. The way he looks out over the city from his feet tells much of his approach to elected office.
People are also reading…
“People go to work. They’re shopping. They’re recreating. They’re moving about their lives. They’re doing their jobs. Even if you don’t know who you are and what you do, you can help promote it. It allows us to think about the prosperity of the world,” Ring said. “They are able to do that because we lock this office into a position where it can function without the limelight, but with the conditions for prosperity for everything that happens around us. I have.”
As the office leader who chooses which crimes to prosecute, he sees himself responsible for soccer moms and working dads around the world. Ring believes in right and wrong, and his office is not a neutral political party. Instead, he describes the county attorney’s job as a “central right.”
In his words, the stance of the Ring’s office ensured that there would be consequences for criminal conduct and that those consequences were inevitable.
“When tragedy strikes people’s lives, we seek fair, equitable, reasonable and complete remedies. That’s our mission statement. It became our mission statement.” said the ring.
Ring hopes the philosophy and mission statement will live on as a legacy of his leadership style.
“Your real job [as county attorney] “It’s about managing the office and attracting others with the skill sets to achieve all the different positions you need to play on the field,” Ring said. , was about strategy, tactics and skill development: attracting and retaining the best attorneys who could be proficient at what we do.”
In this 2017 file photo, Coconino County Attorney Bill Ring spears words during the first round of the 21st Annual Mountain Spelling Bee at the High Country Conference Center.
File, Jake Bacon, Daily Sun, Arizona
Over seven years, Ring feels he has done a great job building the mission and keeping staff in the office.
“I have been doing law for 34 years. We have bright and ambitious young people within the company. They have a desire to take the office. They have developed their leadership skills and are ready for the opportunity.” It’s open,” he said.
Feeling that he was able to refine the office’s mission and attract future talent, Ring said it was time to hand over the torch.
“This is just the evolution of the office, allowing the next generation to have the opportunity to lead. Do it and have the courage to step aside and let the next generation take over the role,” he said.
Ring said chief deputy attorney Amon Barker would be a worthy successor if he decides to run for 2024.
“I think he has compelling competencies, and I think the community and Coconino County will be a huge help if we get the result that Mr. Barker will be the next county attorney,” he said.
Whoever is elected to the office, Ring said, will have to contend with growing pains on the courts. It said it could be large enough to meet the needs of counties with demographics.
Instead, he points out that about 40% of defendants and 30% of victims of crimes in Coconino County are not from the area.
“Our court is as big as 145,000 people. [people]on a given summer day, maybe 345,000,” said Ring.
He employs metaphors to describe cases that go through the judicial system. Now in Coconino County, each case is queued up like voters heading to the polls. Polling places only have space for a very large number of voters at one time.
Similarly, courts can easily become a backlog location.
Ring wants the system to be bigger so that the traffic flow looks the same as in a day at a football stadium where spectators enter shoulder-to-shoulder through multiple gates and have ample seating and accommodation inside. said I need to.
Catching up, but we’re at capacity: Checking in on the post-pandemic backlog in Coconino County’s court system
“We need to right-size our judicial system, and that includes the civil side of the House of Representatives. ” he said.
Mr. Ring is proud to have helped Coconino County lay the foundation for its future as he prepares to retire at the end of this semester. He played a key role in securing a $2.1 million grant from the State Criminal Justice Commission to study the intersection of public health and criminal behavior.
The grant allows counties to hire epidemiologists to collect and analyze data on social determinants of health, examining topics such as quality food, education, mental health resources, and access to transportation. can. Researchers can then compare that data to figures surrounding criminal activity to establish causality at the neighborhood level.
“Crime is often just a symptom of stressors on the public health side of the equation, but the anxiety we mentioned earlier, health insecurity, mental health insecurity, housing insecurity, job insecurity, traffic insecurity, education insecurity, ring “If we can identify where these fears intersect with criminal activity, we can prevent crime before it happens.” By addressing public health issues, we can reduce our reliance on justice. That’s the whole theory. I am most proud to have built it and now have a large grant to study it.“
Ring said he prides himself on being a deep thinker and someone who seeks holistic solutions to criminal justice problems that seem “on the weeds.” The kind of work he’s been drawn to lately—the kind that looks critically at policy—may indicate his intention to jump into the race for higher status.
Ring said such an aspiration is not out of the question, but it’s not exactly on the way yet either.
“This current election cycle is very demanding. That kind of contest doesn’t appeal to me,” Ring said. In the future, there may be options other than the county attorney. ”
In Ring’s office, an entire shelf of bookshelves is home to books on philosophy and religion. His 30-year-old mug from the Ministry of Justice reads, “Law enforcement is the primary object of confiscation.” It’s a quiet nod to Ring’s days working in county civil forfeitures in the 1990s. Cup is often hidden in the shadows of books stacked on Ring’s desk. A book with markers of various sizes, shapes and colors peeking out from between the pages. He likes reading three of his books at once. One is philosophy, the other he is literature, the other is poetry.
When it comes time for Ring to clean up that desk, he wants to spend his time doing the three things he loves most.
“What I want to do, that’s what lawyers do. They read, they think, they write,” Ring said. “I could see myself reading, thinking and writing as a consultant to other county or district attorney’s offices around the country that had specific issues that needed to be addressed.”
Ring said that the next person to take the seat he occupies will also need some bookmarks to read the humanities and concepts that guide criminal justice theory. You also need to spend time looking out the windows of your home.
“It’s not an individual case. It’s a collection of cases. We’re not measuring the outcome of those cases. It’s about enhancing and measuring a culture of prosperity,” Ring said. Do you translate that experience of thriving into how you manage your office? That’s your skill set. That’s what I think I’ve become able to do. I think it’s a place where future leadership can grow. ”
Sierra Ferguson can be reached at sierra.ferguson@lee.net.
