in soviet arizona, law breaks you

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =120069519

I find this fucked up too. Being afraid to set legal precedence in the face of an egregious exception, what a test what a test.

I can't wait to see how it comes out. My prediction: Scalia breaks ranks and comes down in favor of liability.

Because (1) Arpaio had people tortured and (2) the two are mutually exclusive.

Does Arizona elect sheriffs and judges?

But one is never going anywhere, and the other could stop an ongoing problem.

+1

come on people.

i think you [all] need to just take a deep breath and calm down.

i can't even believe how much I hate 90% of cops.

In United States of America, cop hate you. Especially if you're a lawyer, although it stinks more of fear and insecurity.

Can't you just rule that you can't sue a prosecutor for negligence? That should keep the liability floodgates closed while addressing the (alleged) deliberate machinations of the prosecutor.

The rule now is that prosecutors absolute immunity for anything they do as part of being a prosecutor. The question now is if this immunity extends to the investigative phase, before any charges or actual court proceedings have started.

Sheriffs are elected officials. We also have Justices of the Peace, who are elected. They only handle small civil matters and things with small fines, nothing substantial.

The issue with Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department is interesting. Even though Arpaio is clearly violating citizen's rights, he keeps getting re-elected. I think this happens because he plays with the fears of the stereotypical, conservative whites who live in Maricopa county. Think of the people who attend Sarah Palin rallies. In Arizona, there are ALOT of these types, and many of them reside in Maricopa county, probably due to the fact that Maricopa county is far more conservative than most of the rest of the state. Its an interesting situation, because his tactics would have gotten him recalled in Pima county.

Anyways, maybe I will transfer back home and focus on civil rights related law. I am actually considering this so I can restore some measure of respectability to the rights of Arizonans. We will see.

I realize that his constituents probably really like the idea on driving while Mexican being a crime, and may have no problem with violating a defendant's right to representation. But that's why we have federal civil rights laws, to keep local officials from doing dumb s#*t, even if the local community supports it. If I were the ACLU I'd send an army of killer robots after him.

It reminds me of back in my youth when I did a lot of rock climbing in UT. If you got pulled over in some rural parts of the state you'd better pray that it was by the state patrol, because many of the local county sheriff's made no secret that they didn't want outsiders there (this was back before Jeffs was arrested, I think the state gov't cleaned things up a bit since then).

Yes, I see your point. But, the federal government also gave Arpaio certain powers which enabled him to do some of the very things he does. This was through the Department of Homeland Security's ICE program, if I recall correctly. So if the federal government comes down on Arpaio, I imagine it could be rather embarrassing. That is to say, the federal government would end p up calling extra attention to the fact that it gave Arpaio the power to infringe civil liberties. I don't think the government is too willing to investigate this, but I imagine that if there was enough information compiled, DoJ would have no choice but to investigate. Also, it does require the actual filing of a complaint in order for the government to involve itself, I believe. If this is so, many of the people who are being affected probably do not believe that they have any rights and so do not file. It is a crappy situation all around, and to be honest, it angers me enough to make me want to go back home and "do something about it."

On the upside, I do believe DoHS did remove or suspend Arpaio's powers under the ICE program, but he is still acting as though he has them. Coincidentally, those powers would have been removed by the former AZ governor turned Head of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano.

Didn't the feds do this already? Pretty sure ICE revoked his ability to enforce federal immigration law.

http://ktar.com/?nid=6&sid=1223347

I wasn't aware that had already occurred.

More news from Maricopa county

A member of the zoning board (and former judge) ordered a church to stop feeding the homeless, because it attracts undesirables.

Update: The judge ordered the deputy to issue a public apology. He refused, so the judge ordered him jailed "until he lost his contempt for the court." Sheriff Joe says the deputy did nothing wrong and is a political prisoner, while a huge % of the Sheriff's deputies assigned to the jail called out sick as a sign of solidarity.

You could not pay me enough to drive through Maricopa county.

This is one of the reasons why O.J. Simpson got off. When a defense counsel proposes that there was a conspiracy to frame his client, you've got cases like these to legitimize those claims. These law enforcement officers are not just responsible for framing 2 innocent men, they're responsible for letting off numerous guilty ones.

Are the prosecutors and police involved still alive? What's the statute of limitations on prosecuting them?

Man, I wish I knew. It seems like there is a bunch of stuff going on up in Maricopa County right now.

There are many elected officials who endear themselves to the majority by attacking some hated minority. Sometimes it's a minority where it's socially accepted to hate them (pedophiles, drug dealers), sometimes it's a minority it's no longer acceptable to attack (blacks/interracial couples), sometimes it's a real gray area with people strongly on both sides (gays, immigrants). The question is just where society draws the lines; what we consider so worth protecting that we won't allow someone to attack that group in order to win another group's favor.

I think what is going on in Maricopa County is acceptable to the local community, but it's not to large groups of people elsewhere in the country, so the more national their exposure becomes the closer they come to crossing that line and getting hammered for it.

The sad thing is they're so badly undermining their own credibility that once the feds finally move in and take over, it's going to result in all related convictions being overturned, not just the ones of the actually innocent people. The same thing happened in Luzerne County, PA, and the rampant corruption among judges and lawyers there. Long prison sentences were given to juvenile offenders at a jail that was paying kickbacks to the judges for giving them prisoners to hold. The courts eventually vacated the sentences of all 6,000 juvenile offenders who'd been tried in front of these judges.

There's gonna be a stampede for appeals on every case these sheriffs and deputies have ever touched once this is all over.

I was talking to someone about this the other day. I bet that my feelings about Maricopa County are similar to, although not as strong as, the way Black people must have felt about southern towns in the '60s. Theoretically I'm still a US citizen with all its rights and privileges if I travel there, but I have zero faith that the Sheriff's office cares about a technicality like the bill of rights.

Arpaio is leading in polls for the gubernatorial race. I believe he hasn't even declared yet.

^I have family that lives in Maricopa county and over Thanksgiving they were telling me that Arpaio was considering a run for governer, and he keeps saying had to think hard about it because he knows if he ran he would win. We all agreed he was right

My family is mostly conservative but none of them would ever vote for Arpaio.

Kohinoor is right. I grew up in Texas, in a town where the white people still referred to the part of town on the other side of the railroad tracks as "colortown". The racism there is abominable.

Though my generation is making it right--so many of my classmates in high school were having interracial babies that the town's going to all be the same color soon.