U.S. District Judge Murray Snow ruled that Sheriff Joe Arpaio and three of his top aides violated a federal court order meant to curtail racial profiling in his agency. The ruling held Arpaio in contempt on three counts and brings to an end a proceeding that started a year ago when Snow convened a series of hearings in downtown Phoenix to determine whether Arpaio and his commanders defied Snow’s court orders.
Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan was found in contempt on two counts, and retired Chief Brian Sands and Lt. Joe Sousa each were found in contempt of one.
“In short, the court finds that the defendants have engaged in multiple acts of misconduct, dishonesty, and bad faith with respect to the plaintiff class and the protection of its rights,” Snow wrote in a 162-page finding of fact in the case. The judge set a May 31 date for a hearing for lawyers to discuss penalties.
The contempt proceedings were based on three alleged violations:
- That the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office failed to turn over video evidence required before the racial-profiling trial.
- That officials continued to enforce immigration law after Snow barred the practice.
- That Sheridan failed to quietly collect evidence after the trial, as Snow had ordered him to do.
Arpaio and Sheridan both have acknowledged the failures but deny the violations were willful. The distinction could mean the difference between civil and criminal contempt, and served as the primary topic for debate in Snow’s courtroom.
The hearings, which started with four days of testimony in April and resumed with 16 additional days of testimony in the fall, often turned into a much broader discussion that focused on the sheriff’s enforcement priorities and whether he was more interested in settling political scores than rooting out the racial profiling that Snow found in the his department.
Arpaio’s acknowledgment in April that his lawyers had hired a private detective to investigate Snow’s wife was among the most bizarre moments in the lengthy proceeding and set the tone for exchanges between Snow and Arpaio, his aides and lawyers that occasionally were pointed and personal.
The civil contempt-of-court ruling also sets the stage for a criminal contempt-of-court proceeding.
It is the latest development in a case that began when Manuel de Jesus Ortega Melendres, a Mexican tourist legally in the United States, was stopped outside a church in Cave Creek, Ariz., where day laborers were known to gather. Melendres, the passenger in a car driven by a white driver, claimed that deputies detained him for nine hours and that the detention was unlawful.
Eventually, the case grew to include complaints from two Hispanic siblings from Chicago who felt that sheriff’s deputies had racially profiled them and an assistant to former Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon whose Hispanic husband claims he was detained and cited while white motorists nearby were treated differently.
Snow issued a preliminary injunction in December 2011 that prohibited sheriff’s deputies from engaging in law-enforcement practices that unfairly targeted Latinos, and he followed it up in 2013 with an order that included a court-appointed monitor to oversee reforms in the agency.
The costs associated with the racial-profiling case now exceed $60 million, including at least $8.2 million in tax money tied to the outside lawyers required to represent all the parties in the ongoing legal proceedings.
Snow’s finding of contempt and the possibility of further criminal-contempt proceedings means those costs will continue to rise. The ruling also opens up Arpaio and his top aides to an array of sanctions.
Follow Megan Cassidy on Twitter: @meganrcassidy
Article Appeared @http://www.freep.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/05/13/joe-arpaio-contempt-court/84345234/