Published: 09.23.2008
AZ Supreme Court refuses to hear activists case
The Associated Press

PHOENIX — An anti-illegal immigrant activist who was fined for threatening a hunting party in 2004 won't get a chance to argue his case in front of Arizona's highest court.
The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a petition to review a civil lawsuit against Roger Barnett. The suit alleged that Barnett attacked the hunting party with racial slurs and threatened to shoot them with an AR-15 rifle. The group included a family whose members are American citizens of Mexican descent.
"The Supreme Court's decision means that Barnett will finally have to pay for his attack," said Marisol Perez, a lawyer with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund who represented the Morales family. "Barnett's actions were outrageous and offensive to notions of common decency."
Barnett's attorney David Hardy said Barnett has ended his legal challenges and will pay the fine of $98,775.
"It's the first case I've ever seen in which a fellow was held liable for unlawful arrest for having told someone to get off his land," Hardy added.
Barnett, a rancher in southern Arizona, claims to have detained more than 10,000 migrants in the last 10 years. He was sued by Arturo Morales, his son Ronald, Ronald's two daughters and another young girl after confronting them on Oct. 30, 2004 and accusing the group of trespassing.
Barnett doesn't own the land where the Morales family had been crossing, though he leases it from the state. Lawyers for the Morales family said they were in the area legally.
Barnett said he didn't use any slurs and only took out his gun because Ronald Morales was carrying a rifle. Nevertheless, a Cochise County jury in Bisbee ordered Barnett in November 2006 to pay damages.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/brea ... /97572.php