New York Times
By Fernanda Santos
March 24, 2014
PHOENIX
— A federal judge strongly rebuked Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa
County and one of his chief deputies on Monday, saying that they had
defied and even mocked the
judge’s order last year to stop singling out Latinos during routine
patrols, traffic stops and workplace raids.
“Whether
or not the sheriff likes it, there is a distinction in immigration law
that was not understood by the population and, with all due respect to
you, it is not understood
by the sheriff, which is that it is not a criminal violation to be in
this country without authorization,” said the judge, G. Murray Snow of
United States District Court here, staring down the 81-year-old sheriff,
whose tenure has been framed largely by his
unforgiving stance against illegal immigrants.
Ten
months ago, Judge Snow ruled that Mr. Arpaio and his deputies had
systematically profiled Latinos, targeting them for arrest during raids
at day-laborer gathering
spots and detaining them longer than other drivers during traffic
stops. The subsequent order from the judge, who found that the sheriff’s
office had violated the constitutional rights of Latinos, came with
several requirements, including the appointment of
a monitor to field complaints and oversee compliance.
But
at the hearing on Monday, Judge Snow said that Mr. Arpaio and the chief
deputy, Jerry Sheridan, had blatantly flouted his order, pointing as
evidence to a video of
a briefing that the two men held in October for a group of
rank-and-file deputies who participated in a crime-suppression operation
in southwest Phoenix. In the video, Mr. Sheridan called Judge Snow’s
order “ludicrous” and “absurd,” and compared the restrictions
the courts had placed on them to those imposed on the beleaguered New
Orleans Police Department, whose officers, he said, “were murdering
people.”
“That tells you how ludicrous this crap is,” Mr. Sheridan of the judge’s order, as a videocamera recorded his every word.
Mr.
Arpaio spoke next, telling the deputies, “What the chief deputy said is
what I’ve been saying,” adding, “We don’t racially profile, I don’t
care what everybody says.”
None
of that sat well with Judge Snow, who had summoned the two men before
him on Monday to explain themselves. In calling the hearing, Judge Snow
wrote of his concerns
that the leadership of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office may have
chosen to present “a paper appearance of compliance” while fostering “an
attitude of contempt and subversion” toward the corrective actions he
prescribed.
In
court on Monday, Judge Snow addressed most of his remarks to Mr.
Sheridan, asking him, among other things, “Do you believe you’re in
good-faith compliance with the
order if in trainings, in briefings, you mischaracterize the order?”
Mr.
Sheridan came close to an apology, telling Judge Snow: “I’m ashamed of
the things I said. I mischaracterized your order, there is no doubt
about that. I had gotten
some facts incorrect.”
Tim
Casey, a lawyer for Mr. Arpaio, reminded the judge that emotions were
still raw at the time the video was recorded, barely two months after a
sheriff’s deputy was
shot to death in his front yard in southwest Phoenix. He also said that
there was “an adjustment process” whenever change was imposed “by
outside forces.”
Judge
Snow leaned closer to the microphone, locked his gaze on Mr. Casey and
told him, “It isn’t a new order.” The facts it laid out had been raised
as far back as 2011,
when he issued a preliminary injunction in the case, he said.
Sheriff
Arpaio did not speak in court; he sat just behind the defendants’
table, his chin propped on his right hand as he faced Judge Snow. After
the hearing, outside
the courthouse, he struck a tone of defiance, telling reporters: “We’ll
be appealing this case anyway. Stay tuned.”
Throughout
the case, which has gone on for years, Mr. Arpaio has vigorously denied
the allegations. And although he remains a polarizing figure, his
supporters have stuck
by him: Donations to his campaign fund have continued to pour in, from
inside and outside Arizona, and have already surpassed $3 million for
the 2016 election, when he plans to seek a seventh term as sheriff.
Although he has floated the idea of running for
governor of Arizona this year, to replace Jan Brewer, a Republican, as
she leaves office, even some of his closest advisers doubt he will do
so.
The
case before Judge Snow is a class-action lawsuit on behalf of Latinos
who have been or will be stopped by Mr. Arpaio’s deputies in Maricopa
County. But Mr. Arpaio
and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office still face another lawsuit,
filed by the Justice Department, claiming civil rights violations, based
on, among other things, a longstanding pattern of discrimination
against Latinos.
To
Judge Snow, the hearing was an opportunity to put the alleged
violations and mischaracterizations of his orders on the record. He made
clear that if there were any
further violations, he would not hesitate to use his authority to
impose further sanctions on the sheriff’s office, like hiring more
monitors to make sure the deputies were no longer discriminating against
Latinos.
To
underscore his points, Judge Snow asked that the lawyers on both sides
of the case prepare a summary of his order and that Mr. Arpaio and his
deputies use it as a training
tool, ideally to make sure none of it was misinterpreted. He also asked
both sides to sign a letter attesting to the intentions of the order,
which Mr. Arpaio’s lawyers said they would have to discuss before
accepting.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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