The Trials of Joe Arpaio

[Count Bobulescu]

Joe has long been self styled as America’s toughest Sheriff. The first of two trials has begun after a five year prep. It has been certified as a class action on behalf of mainly latinos who allege discrimination. Joe might be politely described as a piece of work.
The effect and implications of these trials will reach much further than the celebrity trials the media obsess over.

Here are a few recent pieces and you can learn more about Joe from the wiki link at bottom.

PHOENIX — Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s anti-illegal immigration patrols took center stage Thursday in federal court as a group of Latinos set out to prove that his deputies racially profiled them as part of a systemic policy of discrimination.
A lawyer for the plaintiffs who filed a civil lawsuit against Arpaio’s department said in opening statements that the evidence will show that Arpaio and his deputies discriminated against Hispanics.

The lawsuit echoes some of the racial profiling accusations in the DOJ case. That suit said Arpaio’s office retaliated against its critics, punished Latino jail inmates with limited English skills for speaking Spanish and failed to adequately investigate a large number of sex-crimes cases. No trial date in that case has been set.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...rc=nl_politics

As the trial began Thursday at downtown Phoenix's federal courthouse, U.S. District Judge Murray Snow added another wrinkle, informing both sides that he planned to make a decision based on the facts as they stand today, not as they were when he took over the case in 2009.

Before the first day's hearing ended, both factors came into play in the trial that Sheriff Joe Arpaio's attorneys have described as a landmark case.
The "bench" trial is expected to take place over six days during the next two weeks. Each side has been limited to 20 hours for their presentations before Snow decides whether Arpaio's department has engaged in racial profiling.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepu...#ixzz21ATmMyPi

A few days before the trial began, Arpaio held a news conference to declare that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is fake. The sheriff reached that conclusion after his volunteer posse of investigators traveled to Hawaii to demand a copy of the president's birth certificate. Arpaio said his intent in launching the probe wasn’t to undermine Obama but “to clear the president of the United States.” Never mind that so-called birther claims that Obama was born outside the U.S. and so is ineligible to be president have already been kicked out of court, and refuted by state officials in Hawaii.

And a few days before Arpaio revealed his bombshell findings, the silver-haired sheriff managed to find himself in a feud with comedian George Lopez, after Lopez unleashed an expletive-laced rant against Arpaio during his one-man show on HBO. The sheriff later challenged Lopez to “get some guts” and meet him face to face. Was the sheriff suggesting the two settle it lucha libre-style?

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...,2484623.story

PHOENIX — Letters purporting to offer information about illegal immigrants are among a vast array of evidence to be introduced in the class-action civil rights trial against Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office that began on Thursday in Federal District Court here.

There is much at stake for the civil rights movement. Two of its leading organizations — the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund — are representing the plaintiffs, and condemning Sheriff Arpaio and his practices is just one of their goals. More broadly, the idea is to highlight the pitfalls of allowing local police officials to play a role in enforcing federal immigration laws.

This trial, and a broader lawsuit filed against Sheriff Arpaio by the Justice Department in May, both focus on potential violations of civil rights. The six plaintiffs named in this litigation, filed nearly five years ago, represent Latinos who were stopped by Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies since 2007.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/us...n-phoenix.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio

[Holly]

About a quarter of Arizona's population is Mexican and growing. Whites there feel threatened and the state attracts drifters and those on the lam from California. Because of the historical large presence of Mexicans, there has been a cultural intolerance from the white North Americans. It is a conservative state that unsuccessfully tried recently to have English made its "official language". The sheriff of Maricopa County is typical of working class Arizonans and enjoys wide popularity among the whites.

[fluffybiscuits]

Arizona very much stinks of racial profiling itself. Remember the hassle over the new immigration law that was going to be brought in that would mean that a copper could stop someone and enquire about their immigration status. If the cops were like the one mentioned above then there was not going to be many whites stopped would there? (http://www.azcentral.com/news/politi...l-remains.html). Smash the system , undermine it and rip down the borders. Freedom for all....

[Andrew49]

About a quarter of Arizona's population is Mexican and growing. Whites there feel threatened and the state attracts drifters and those on the lam from California. Because of the historical large presence of Mexicans, there has been a cultural intolerance from the white North Americans. It is a conservative state that unsuccessfully tried recently to have English made its "official language". The sheriff of Maricopa County is typical of working class Arizonans and enjoys wide popularity among the whites.

A working class hero is something to be! He might be obdurate, racist, intolerant and probably reflects the views of those who elect him into office election after election, but he's the only 'bona fide' lawman whoever put the wind up an alleged child abuser. It was definitely his prison policy that scared the behaybus out of an Irish priest that he skipped bail on abuse charges - and got the backing of the Irish High Court who refused Joe's extradition attempt.

The extradition request wasn't denied on the grounds of spurious charges but on the grounds of pink underwear!





The second reason for refusing extradition related to the bail regime in Arizona which, he concluded, would amount under Irish law to an infringement of his constitutional right to liberty. The Judge also said he had been made aware of a newspaper article picturing a chain gang of inmates of Maricopa County Jail being paraded in an apparently public way, wearing nothing but pink underwear and linked together with pink handcuffs, all under the supervision of Sheriff Arpaio.

The judge had also been made aware of media interviews in which the sheriff indicated Fr. Colleary could be in his jail for two or three years before he ever got a trial. Mr. Justice O'Sullivan said that in his opinion there was ample justification to the submission that Sheriff Arpaio gloated over the inhumane treatment he "dishes out" to his inmates.

He forced them to wear pink to humiliate them and appeared to take a chillingly sadistic pleasure in his role as incarcerator. It was the duty of an Irish court to see that no citizen was handed over to such a regime, he said. LINK


Fuller Report HERE

[bernadette]

Call me old fashioned but I don't see how police can escape using racial profiling. If they are looking for a mexican they are not going to be looking for blue eyed blondes.

Joe Arpaio is a bombastic populist but there is a serious illegal immigration route through Arizona run by gangs and the American government, terrified of the Latino vote, are refusing to deal with it. There is also a strong Latino/South American element that rejects the notion that they should need a passport to enter the USA. The combination understandably frightens the communities in Arizona and telling people they have nothing to fear and no right to complain is patronising dishonest nonsense.

As for Obamas birth certificate he created the problem. Poor black guy being victimised because he was asked to do what every other president in the USA has done.

[Holly]

A working class hero is something to be! He might be obdurate, racist, intolerant and probably reflects the views of those who elect him into office election after election, but he's the only 'bona fide' lawman whoever put the wind up an alleged child abuser. ...

Quit changing the subject so you can get on your child molesting hobby horse, Andrew. Can't you write about anything else for crying out loud? Human rights for the accused for example.

[Andrew49]

Quit changing the subject so you can get on your child molesting hobby horse, Andrew. Can't you write about anything else for crying out loud? Human rights for the accused for example.

A 'hobby horse' is generally a pastime and I've never abused children as a pastime, heck, I've never abused children PERIOD!

The Irish priest accused of a particular horrific pastime had his human rights upheld by the Irish judiciary .... the same Irish judiciary that regularly incarcerates Irish citizens into Irish jails found to be degrading, dangerous and with hazardous conditions both for prisoners and staff.

Seems to me Sheriff Joe is an easy figure to target on illegal immigration and civil rights. He thrives on controversy and loves his ego being massaged by the 'liberal' media. The current case will only strengthen his ego and his constituency.

[Holly]

... The Irish priest accused of a particular horrific pastime had his human rights upheld by the Irish judiciary ....

Not every thread has to be about priests molesting children, Andrew.

[Count Bobulescu]

Call me old fashioned but I don't see how police can escape using racial profiling. If they are looking for a mexican they are not going to be looking for blue eyed blondes.

Joe Arpaio is a bombastic populist but there is a serious illegal immigration route through Arizona run by gangs and the American government, terrified of the Latino vote, are refusing to deal with it. There is also a strong Latino/South American element that rejects the notion that they should need a passport to enter the USA. The combination understandably frightens the communities in Arizona and telling people they have nothing to fear and no right to complain is patronising dishonest nonsense.

As for Obamas birth certificate he created the problem. Poor black guy being victimised because he was asked to do what every other president in the USA has done.

Jeez bernadette, I’d never have figured you for a devotee of the Donald Trump school of birtherism.

[bernadette]

Jeez bernadette, I’d never have figured you for a devotee of the Donald Trump school of birtherism.

I'm not! I believe Obama is as American as Dubwya! I also believe that he chose to make his birth certificate an issue. It was a subtle reminder of his colour and his recent immigrant status. A win win for him.

[Count Bobulescu]

When First-Amendment-istas talk about the benefits of opening up our nation's federal courts to cameras, the first thing most people think about is televising oral argument at the United States Supreme Court. That's a shame -- and not just because such a goal seems destined to remain beyond our reach for at least another generation. Although the American people say they would like to see the justices hammer away at poor appellate lawyers, the real action, the action that would make great television and radio, more often occurs at the federal trial court level. That's where we need the cameras.

This week, for example, America would have benefited from being able to witness live or on tape the courtroom testimony of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio as he defended himself in a federal civil rights case about alleged racial profiling. On trial in Phoenix in a case styled Melendres v. Arpaio, "Sheriff Joe," who is both America's most famous lawman and arguably its worst, acted like most other demagogues act when they are confronted by reason and the truth: He hemmed and he hawed, he blamed his subordinates, and claimed he disagreed with what had been written in his own book.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/...-court/260392/

WaPo Editorial.

SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO delights in the tough-guy persona he has cultivated in 20 years as the top law enforcement officer in Arizona’s sprawling Maricopa County, which includes the city of Phoenix. In fact, Mr. Arpaio is a bully whose swagger and TV talk-show bluster derive chiefly from his notoriety for harassing largely powerless Latinos — legal residents, illegal immigrants and even citizens, along with prisoners in the jails he runs. A darling of nativists and xenophobes, who have helped pump $7 million into his reelection campaign chest this year, Mr. Arpaio has never been called to account for his noxious policies or words — until now.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...c=nl_headlines

[Count Bobulescu]

PHOENIX — In nearly 20 years as sheriff of Maricopa County, Joe Arpaio has honed his publicity skills, using headline-grabbing, often outrageous maneuvers to build a reputation as the nation’s toughest law officer and make himself a hero to many Americans.

He created the nation’s first female chain gang; issued pink socks and underwear to the men held in the county’s jails; and housed inmates in refurbished Korean War tents under the blazing desert sun, then cut the salt and pepper out of their two meals a day. He also sent a posse to Hawaii to check on President Obama’s birth certificate, earning staunch supporters and vociferous opponents along the way.
But now his penchant for public relations coups, each seemingly intended to outdo the last, threatens to become one of his greatest liabilities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/us...pagewanted=all

"My people said, 'You're stupid to do an interview with that magazine,'" says Arpaio, talking about Rolling Stone, "but hey, controversy – well, it hasn't hurt me in 50 years."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/...#ixzz22QM6P6br

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/...rpaio-20120802