Maricopa County’s first Native American justice of the peace, Deborah Ann Begay, is facing charges of judicial misconduct for a complaint that she used her status as a judge to obtain special treatment for a friend’s son.
Begay, who is Navajo, worked as a justice of the peace for the Moon Valley precinct of the Maricopa County Justice Court from 2021 to 2025. After she lost the 2024 election, she worked as a pro tem judge for the Maricopa County Justice Courts.
In Tuesday’s election, Begay won the Democratic primary for justice of the peace in the neighboring Encanto precinct, defeating businessman and former state legislator Ken Cheuvront. There is no Republican candidate, so Begay will will the November election by default.
In July 2025, Begay made a Facebook post saying that she had called some other judges for help after her friend’s son was detained over the July 4 holiday weekend for not having a driver’s license.
“Not the usual way things go but look for more of this if you have higher melanin content,” the since-deleted post read. “I didn’t have any local judges phone numbers but (Justice of the Peace) Jennifer Jermaine did. She helped me to help someone else.”
Begay went on to thank the three judges who she said had helped her: Jermaine, Gila County Justice Court Judge Pro Tem Javier Sobampo and Pima County Justice Court Judge Victoria Steele.
“Everything turned out fine,” Begay wrote.
After seeing the post, someone made an anonymous complaint about it to the Arizona Commission on Judicial Conduct.
“It must be nice to be a former judge,” the complainer wrote. “If you are, you get to ask current judges to get your friends out of jail.”
Begay deleted the post after Jermaine asked her to. Jermaine told the commission that she didn’t know why Begay had asked her for other judges’ phone numbers, according to the Commission on Judicial Conduct’s statement of charges.
In a December response to the complaint, Begay said that she didn’t believe she had done anything wrong.
“I respectfully deny the allegation that I have used, or attempted to use my judicial office to secure any personal advantage,” she wrote. “At no time have I invoked my title, authority or position as a judge — explicitly or implicitly — to influence decisions, obtain services, or gain treatment not equally available to members of the public.”
In a follow up letter to the commission’s disciplinary counsel Brian Bohan, Begay wrote that her only intention when reaching out to the other judges was to find out the process for holding people over the holiday weekend.
She added that the post was aimed at “general advocacy against racism and in support of due process. I wanted others to know this is a value shared by the judiciary.”
But the Commission on Judicial Conduct found that the post made it seem that Begay used her judicial connections to obtain favorable treatment for her friend’s son. In January, the commission formally reprimanded her, taking into account past warnings it issued to Begay about her campaign conduct as well as previous social media posts that it said violated the Judicial Code of Conduct.
In February, Begay requested a formal hearing on the charges against her, which is yet to be scheduled.
In a July 10 response to the formal charges, issued in May, Begay wrote of her “longstanding commitment to administering justice fairly, treating litigants with dignity, and faithfully carrying out my judicial duties.”
She wrote that the post was made to thank the judges for “making themselves available to the public” and was aimed at “maintaining public confidence in the judiciary.”
“The allegations accurately reflect neither my intent nor my conduct,” she wrote.
Begay asked the commission to consider her history of serving the public via her 20 years in the U.S. Navy and as a guardian ad litem for Gila River Indian Community children in foster care.
Begay also wrote of the gravity of her status as the first Native American elected to the Maricopa County Justice Courts and as a two-spirit person, who embodies both female and male, she has “advocated for inclusion, dignity, and equal access to justice.”
She wrote that, if the commission finds that she violated judicial ethics, it would stand in contrast to the rest of her judicial record.
“The totality of the circumstances reflects, at most, a word choice that could be (and was) misconstrued — not a willful or intentional violation of the Arizona Code of Judicial Conduct,” Begay wrote.
She asked that the commission dismiss the charges against her, or issue a private reprimand.
“Such a disposition would appropriately recognize the absence of any improper motive of personal gain, my history of honorable military, legal and judicial service, my previously unblemished record, and my continued commitment to the ethical administration of justice,” she wrote.
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