Posted on 05/25/2013 6:13:03 AM PDT by SandRat
PHOENIX - Self-professed "toughest sheriff in America" Joe Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office were guilty of racial profiling, a federal judge found Friday, before ordering a permanent halt to the practice.
In a 140-page ruling, Judge Murray Snow said Arpaio's department, under his direction, was detaining individuals believed to be in this country illegally without some other reason to arrest them for violating any state laws.
Snow said that continued to occur even after the Department of Homeland Security revoked the department's authority to identify and detain those not in the country legally.
The judge also said department policy and practice allow officers to consider the ethnicity of a vehicle's occupants in determining whether they have reasonable suspicion to investigate them for violation of state immigration laws.
"In some instances these policies result in prolonging the traffic stop beyond the time necessary to resolve the issue that initially justified the stop," Snow wrote. Absent some reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, holding people longer than necessary violates their constitutional rights against unreasonable search and seizure, he said.
Snow said that entitled Hispanic individuals who sued to an injunction permanently barring the Arpaio's department from using Hispanic ancestry or race to determine whether to stop a vehicle. It also prohibits deputies from detaining or arresting Latino occupants of a vehicle on a belief that they are in this country illegally if race is the only factor they have.
The order also bars the agency from detaining Latino occupants of vehicles stopped for traffic violations any longer than necessary to process the citation unless officers have "reasonable suspicion" that any are committing a federal or state crime.
Arpaio said he does not believe his agency engages in racial profiling. "That's why we're going to appeal it," he said.
But Dan Pochoda, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, said the ruling confirms allegations Latinos have been "terrorized" by Arpaio's deputies and "forced to endure years of racial harassment and abuse." In a prepared statement, Pochoda said all that can be laid at the feet of "Arpaio's proven willingness to seek political gain at the expense of public safety and constitutional guarantees."
Friday's ruling has no financial implications, as the plaintiffs in the civil case did not seek damages, but only an injunction to require the agency to changes its practices.
At least on paper, the instructions to deputies were that vehicles were not to be stopped based on the race of those in a vehicle, Snow said. But he said evidence painted a different picture.
"While officers were prohibited from using race as the only basis to undertake a law enforcement investigation, they were allowed as a matter of policy and instruction to consider race as one factor among others in making law enforcement decisions in the context of immigration enforcement," the judge wrote.
Snow reached his ruling after reviewing years of crime prevention "saturation patrols" by the department. He said these were far from neutral.
The department "almost always scheduled its day-labor and small-scale saturation patrols where Latino day laborers congregated," he said. "The same is true for a considerable number of its large-scale saturation patrols."
And Snow said it is clear the purpose of these patrols was to enforce immigration laws, citing the news releases issued by the agency's public relations officers.
"These news releases either emphasized that the patrols' purpose was immigration enforcement, or prominently featured the number of unauthorized aliens arrested during such operations," Snow said. "Most of the time, the reports ignored any other arrests that took place."
Snow also said the saturation operations were just a pretext to stop vehicles with people who may be in this country illegally.
"During saturation patrols, participating deputies conducted many stops for minor violations of the traffic code, including minor equipment violations," the judge said.
And Snow said that, generally speaking, deputies "had no difficulty in finding a basis to stop any vehicle they wished for a traffic infraction."
Let me guess...the judge is a lib appointee!
Suurprise a GW Bush appointee
This is merely another silencing and intimidation tactic by the Communists ruling DC.
Wow. They have investigated him r4-5 times on the same issue with NO evidence of guilt. Now they declare him guilty w/o a trial or any presentation of evidence. Hatchet job??
I’m not buying it. I know Joe and I don’t believe it.
Wouldn't you have to use race to make this finding?
He should go to one of them and hang around all day long. Wear a good suit too.
He wouldn’t find work. Never hire a ditch digger in
a suit.
Think of it like the school busing clown show. That was based on the theory that black chillun' are incapable of learning unless there are white chillun' in the classrooms ~ and to avoid angering the whites, and to satisfy the black demand for equality, they bused the black chillun' across town ~ sometimes FOR HOURS and isolated them from their parents, neighbors and other people normally in their lives for most of their waking hours.
That was supposed to be good for black chillun' ~ even though it was destroying the black family in urban areas.
You occasionally encounter Leftwingtards who still believe in that theory but we can readily dismiss their concerns since it's obvious they suffer from some degree of schizophrenia.
It's the same with 'profiling' ~ Janet Napolitano and Kathleen Sibelius do it ~ they don't date men for example.
The Sheriff can have deputies park right outside various country and western beer joints and fill their ‘white quota’ ~ to balance the ‘tan quota’.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck.
~
And it is duck season.
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