It’s game on! Crazy Uncle Joe Arpaio is having a bad week, and its going to get worse next week he goes on trial for contempt of court. We may finally be seeing the beginning of the end of the “most corrupt sheriff in America.”
This week the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow’s 2013 ruling against the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office for illegal racial-profiling. Racial-profiling ruling vs. Arpaio largely upheld:
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld a federal judge’s ruling against the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in a racial-profiling case, according to a statement filed Wednesday.
In 2013, U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow found Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s deputies had disproportionately targeted Latinos during their traffic operations. The ruling extended to both regular and “saturation” patrols, where deputies would flood predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods.
Arpaio’s subsequent appeal did not contest the saturation patrol finding, only the portion dealing with regular patrols.
The appeals court upheld the federal judge’s inclusion of non-saturation patrols in his finding of racial profiling, and additionally maintained his rulings of corrective actions that included training and video-recording of traffic stops.
“I think it marks a significant victory,” said Cecillia Wang, a plaintiffs’ attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “Once again the sheriff’s efforts to continue his policy on immigration enforcement have been rebuffed by a federal court.”
The panel did agree with the appeal in one respect, and ruled that the court-appointed monitor’s oversight of internal investigations must only be related to the constitutional violations.
The decision comes one week before a civil-contempt hearing for Arpaio and many of his top aides. Arpaio has admitted defying the court, and proposed a settlement that would have included dismissal of his appeal.
Judge Snow declined to vacate the contempt hearing:
U.S. District Judge Murray Snow rejected an Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s bid to cancel contempt-of-court hearings that will focus on the lawman’s acknowledged violations of court orders in a racial profiling case.
The decision marks his second rejection of the Maricopa County sheriff’s request to call off hearings that will examine how his office ran immigration patrols for about 18 months after a 2011 injunction ordered them to stop.
Arpaio and his second-in-command, Jerry Sheridan, have acknowledged the violations and offered to make a $100,000 donation from their own pockets to a civil rights group in a bid to call off the hearings. The sheriff’s proposal marked a rare public expression of contrition for the normally unapologetic and defiant lawman.
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Civil-rights lawyers say the evidence will show the violations were intentional. They also say they will show what steps will be required to avoid repeat occurrences.
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The hearings also will examine contempt violations stemming from a failure by the sheriff’s office to turn over traffic-stop recordings in the profiling case and for bungling a plan to gather the recordings from officers once they came to light.
The hearing is scheduled for April 21-24 next week. Based upon Judge Snow’s prior statements, I would not be surprised if he throws the book at the “most corrupt sheriff in America.”
Then again, you may be building yourself up for a serious letdown. I know you smell blood in the wind, but Courts and Judges have been known to fool us all. It will be interesting to see how it goes.
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