Federal Government Sues Sheriff Joe Arpaio

[RakuraiTenjin]

About damn time, and not for what most of you think.

As I've referenced many times, there is a huge battle between Arpaio's MCSO and other facets of the county government. Arpaio has also had documents demanded from the feds, and for whatever reason he has REFUSED to turn them over. That's what the lawsuit is about


I am against Obama's administration as much as the next guy, but Arpaio is trying to stoke that up to defend himself. It's not about that, and it's not about immigration enforcement. Some other law enforcement in AZ enforces immigration law as well and they dont use the same tactics as MCSO. Arpaio is hiding something and its either theft of public funds or illegal internal memos, etc. He'll say the administration is on a witchhunt for him to distract from those two REAL issues. People will get distracted by 'enforcing illegal immigration' when that's not what its all about!


Here's the article

http://www.azcentral.com/news/elect...aio-sued-by-justice-department-brk-02-ON.html

The U.S. Department of Justice filed an unprecedented lawsuit Thursday against the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office for refusing to provide full access to records and facilities for a civil-rights investigation. The federal lawsuit
Arpaio, Pearce respond

The suit alleges the Sheriff's Office is in violation of federal civil-rights laws by refusing for 17 months to fully cooperate with an investigation into police practices and jail operations. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, names Sheriff Joe Arpaio, his office and Maricopa County.


The Justice Department wants extensive records related to booking procedures, language and interpretation services, arrests, and access to staff and jails.
County officials said Arpaio is jeopardizing future federal funding, which requires government agencies to comply with civil-rights laws. Six percent of the county's $2 billion budget comes from federal funding, and a loss would be "catastrophic," county officials said.

The federal investigation dates to 2008 and seeks to determine whether the Sheriff's Office discriminates on the basis of national origin. Arpaio denies any discrimination and said he was surprised by the lawsuit. He has 21 days to respond.

The civil-rights probe is unrelated to a separate abuse-of-power criminal investigation against the Sheriff's Office by the Justice Department, which is connected to long-running disputes with county government and the judiciary and has led to months of grand-jury testimony.

Attorneys for the Sheriff's Office repeatedly have said they were cooperating with the civil-rights probe but set conditions on the breadth of documents they would release and when. Last week, a sheriff's attorney said in a letter to the Justice Department that he had not agreed to their deadlines.

On Thursday, federal officials made good on their threat to sue. Justice Department officials could not point to a case within the past 30 years in which they had to sue a law-enforcement department to provide access to information.

Dennis Burke, U.S. attorney for Arizona, said that Arpaio's behavior is "self-serving" and pointed out that the Sheriff's Office is legally obligated to provide access to records and facilities because the office receives federal money.

"This is about accountability, and the Sheriff Office's lack of it," Burke told The Republic. "They're trying to design their own self-serving, contorted rules, and they expect unprecedented special treatment different than any other law-enforcement agency across the country - or in history. They want to voluntarily comply with what they want to comply with - despite repeated requests over 17 months."

Attorney Robert Driscoll, who has been negotiating with the Justice Department on Arpaio's behalf, denounced the lawsuit as an attempt to undermine Arpaio's immigration enforcement.

Arpaio released a statement saying President Barack Obama's administration "intended to sue us all along, no matter what we did to try to avert it."

But, according to the lawsuit, officials in the Justice Department's civil-rights unit first started looking at allegations of civil-rights violations by the Sheriff's Office in June 2008, during the George W. Bush era. The probe was not revealed publicly until March 2009.

Arpaio, however, contends the inquiry is part of a conspiracy connecting the White House, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and local advocacy groups.


The discussions

The complaint details the back-and-forth discussions between the Sheriff's Office and the Justice Department, culminating in Driscoll's letter last week. In that letter, he agreed to cooperate but not to the extent requested by the investigators.

Driscoll had met with Justice Department officials just days earlier. In a memo of that meeting, a chief in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division detailed the records that must be produced and asked to tour six jails and interview staff about a range of issues, including intake and booking procedures, and language and interpretation services. Investigators also requested documents related to arrests dating to January 2008.

The attorney asked the Justice Department to be more specific about what it wanted and indicated he would not make a Sept. 10 deadline.

Burke said Driscoll's response triggered the lawsuit. "The letter contradicts what they said in the meeting," he said.

According to legal experts, the lawsuit seeking records will be difficult for Arpaio to win.

Paul Bender, an Arizona State University law professor and former deputy solicitor for the Justice Department, said such disputes "are usually resolved in favor of the person looking for the documents. You're entitled to get anything that might be relevant."

But Bender said civil-rights offenses are difficult to prove. "You have to show intent," he said, and that is why investigators want to look at a wide range of documents and policies. "This investigation goes to the heart of people's complaints against Sheriff Joe, that he discriminates in his traffic stops and jail practices."

Jose de Jesus Rivera, a former U.S. attorney for Arizona, agreed. "It's pretty clear cut that they're entitled to those records," he said. "It's not like they're rushing to judgment. They've given them a year and a half to comply."

Paul Charlton, another former U.S. Attorney for Arizona, agreed: "When people are fighting you for documents you have a right to, there's reason to believe those documents show evidence of consciousness of guilt. There's no other reason not to turn them over."

Reaction was swift from some Hispanic leaders, including County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, who called on Arpaio to cooperate fully with the Justice Department.

"This is ridiculous and irresponsible, so give over your documents, give them access to your facilities, and give interviews with your staff and comply," Wilcox said.

An attorney for the county Board of Supervisors proposed Thursday afternoon in a letter to the Justice Department that the Sheriff's Office and the federal government resolve the matter through mediation. The attorney, Tom Irvine, asked the Justice Department to enter mediation next week, before the dispute goes to court.


Arpaio's refusal

Arpaio first refused to cooperate with federal officials back in July 2009, three months after the probe became public.

His reasoning alternated from an allegation that the Justice Department was not clearly articulating the scope of the investigation, to Arpaio's belief that federal investigators violated their own policy when they tried to gain access to documents that sheriff's officials already had turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as part of an annual audit.

Arpaio and Driscoll also claim Justice officials already have access to thousands of documents they obtained over the course of two other ongoing civil lawsuits involving racial profiling.

But Burke and other legal experts point out that Arpaio does not get to direct the investigation and decide which documents are relevant.

The two sides stopped communicating for months, although Justice representatives promised the inquiry would go on and investigators continued to visit the Valley to speak with potential victims and witnesses.

Arpaio began to change his stance on cooperating last month, after the Justice Department first threatened to sue to force the Sheriff's Office to turn over the records.

The next day, Arpaio's attorney said the Sheriff's Office was cooperating with certain aspects of the investigation focusing on jails. But Driscoll continued to insist they had no obligation to cooperate with the federal investigation into the sheriff's street-level enforcement practices.

Arpaio said he was caught off-guard by Thursday's filing: "They have hundreds and thousands of reports," he said. "Why did this happen now?"

The Sheriff's Office has agreed to turn over 500,000 e-mails and 100,000 documents related to immigration enforcement, a spokeswoman said.


Funding is at stake

The consequences for failing to cooperate with the probe could be financially harmful, officials and attorneys said.

At stake is $113 million in future federal funding for the county, they say, which is given on the condition that officials agree they will not discriminate against residents and will cooperate with federal officials. The money funds dozens of programs, such as nutrition for women and children, energy assistance for low-income families, housing, and health care for the homeless.

Supervisors attorney Irvine said it is unclear if federal officials could rescind money they have already awarded to the county.

But future funding could be at risk because county officials regularly have to certify they are complying with federal laws. Because the Board of Supervisors is uncertain if those laws are being followed, they cannot sign for certification that allows them to apply for the funds.

"Worst case is that if the federal opinion is that Maricopa County is out of compliance with Title VI (of the Civil Rights Act of 1964), and if that were to last a year, that would eliminate all $113 million," Irvine said. "We have no certainty that environmental, highway, health, federal monies will not be severely impacted. Hopefully, that doesn't happen."

County officials also hope Arpaio will agree to work with the Justice Department to avoid legal fees. The county already has paid out more than $3.2 million in taxpayer dollars to pay for attorneys, audits and expenses related to the ongoing disputes that have embroiled county government.

Several of those battles were waged over access to sheriff's records. For example, sheriff's officials are fighting with the supervisors over access to financial and personnel records, which has cost upward of $100,000 in public funds.



Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/elect...stice-department-brk-02-ON.html#ixzz0ySXgQaRB

 

[Eejit]

In related news:

AUSTIN, TX—Following a series of embarrassingly backward laws recently enacted in Arizona, Texas governor Rick Perry pledged Wednesday to do everything in his power to reestablish his state as the most regressive in the nation. "I commend Arizona for its commitment to exceedingly draconian social policies, but [Arizona Governor] Jan Brewer should know that we still have some real doozies up our sleeve," said Perry, referring to Arizona's passage of the strictest immigration law in recent U.S. history, as well as its measures allowing concealed weapons to be carried without a permit and banning ethnic studies programs in public schools. "Don't forget, we just put an ultraconservative stamp on our educational curriculum that's going to affect the textbooks the whole country uses, and I'm still the only governor nutso enough to float secession. Mark my words, we'll be back and more ****ed up than ever!" Sources close to Perry said that Texas may soon start storing undocumented migrant workers in dog cages while courts decide their immigration status, though Arizona plans to counter with a giant cannon that will be used to shoot anyone with a skin tone darker than ochre who crosses the border from Mexico.

 

[<RJMC>]

ironic thing is that arpaio is decendant from inmigrants right? oh yeah the white ones so there is no problems....

 

[AJ Rimmer]

ironic thing is that arpaio is decendant from inmigrants right? oh yeah the white ones so there is no problems....

All Americans are descended from immigrants, apart from those who are descended from Native Americans.

 

[<RJMC>]

All Americans are descended from immigrants, apart from those who are descended from Native Americans.

yeah but I mean the ones descenand from italians and irsh and such that came in mass in the beggining fo the 20 century,that in those times they where seem as the mafias and gangsters and such and now it seem pretty normal for a person of the usa to have italian or irish descendency and it seems like a positive trait

and politicians decending from those groups are supporting those strict laws,so I find it highly ironic

 

[unozero]

ironic thing is that arpaio is decendant from inmigrants right? oh yeah the white ones so there is no problems....

lol Italians are white?
you sound like a true tool.What does him being a descended from LEGAL Immigrants have anything to do with him trying enforce laws?

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

Again, this case isnt about illegal immigrants so much as Arpaio's refusal to comply with releasing documents. I also wanted to shed light on the other case with him fighting the county over misuse of funds.

I got no problem with deporting illegal immigrants. The problem is Joe Arpaio tries to be the face of 'tackling the problem' in order to divert attention away from other scandals and abuses of power. It's used as a smokescreen, and all of his out of state supporters and such usually hear nothing about those things. They just hear he fights illegal immigration and they like that.

Hell, hope he doesn't even see these postings. He's tried to obtain IP addresses of those who've criticized him online before, and is known for investigating / raiding public offices of those officials who come out publicly against him.