Thread: Ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio to defend reputation at criminal trial

There is nothing wrong with anything Sheriff Joe said about illegal immigration. He was always truthful, honest, respectful, but determined to enforce the law to protect our citizens, businesses, coffers and nation.

POSTED JUN 27, 2017 01:34 PM CDT

BY DEBRA CASSENS WEISS

A former lawyer for Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio was forced to testify Monday in Arpaio’s criminal contempt trial for allegedly violating a judge’s order.

Arpaio, who lost his bid for re-election, is accused of violating a court order that barred him from detaining people only because he believed they were in the country illegally. His former lawyer, Tim Casey, testified on Monday that he told Arpaio that immigrants could not be detained unless they were arrested on state charges, report the Associated Press, the Phoenix New Times and the Arizona Republic.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton generally allowed Casey to testify about his recollections of conversations, but generally blocked testimony involving hearsay or Casey’s frame of mind, according to the Arizona Republic account. Casey was represented by his own ethics lawyer.

Prosecutors say Arpaio continued to detain individuals based on a suspicion that they were in the country illegally for at least 17 months after the judge ordered a stop to the arrests. In opening arguments, Justice Department lawyer Victor Salgado said Arpaio’s public statements show he knew he was defying the court order.

“I’m still gonna do what I’m doing,” Arpaio told reporters in April 2012. “I’m still gonna arrest illegal aliens.”

Arpaio’s defense lawyer at trial, Dennis Wilenchik, claimed the injunction wasn’t clear and Casey had “dropped the ball” in explaining the order.

http://www.abajournal.com/news/artic..._contempt_tria

Megan Cassidy , The Republic Published 8:06 p.m. MT June 29, 2017 | Updated 12 hours ago

Closing arguments set for July 6 for the longtime Maricopa County sheriff

Both sides in the criminal contempt trial against former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio rested their cases Thursday afternoon, wrapping up proceedings in half the time allotted.

Arpaio is accused of intentionally violating a federal judge’s order that barred his signature immigration patrols. The trial was scheduled to last until July 7, but now only a few hours of closing arguments remain pending.

These are scheduled for July 6, and each side will get up to two hours to make its case.

Trial surprisingly unsurprising

In many ways, the trial was remarkable for what it wasn’t.

Absent were the protesters that had lined Phoenix’s federal courthouse at nearly every hearing when Arpaio was in office. A room set up for overflow seating remained empty and eventually was shuttered after presiding U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton noted there was plenty of empty space in the courtroom.

And the trial itself offered few surprises, as nearly all of the evidence presented by federal prosecutors echoed the civil-contempt case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and others two years ago.

Prosecutors called no victims of illegal detention to the witness stand, although they successfully blocked a defense motion that would have prevented them from doing so.

And the star of the show, Arpaio, never testified in his own defense.

Arpaio was present each of the four days in court though, attentive to each of the witnesses. The former sheriff seemed in high spirits throughout the proceedings, often chatting and joking with reporters in the hallways.

Asked why he wasn’t wearing the signature pistol pin on his tie, Arpaio quipped, “I don’t bring guns into the courthouse,” and chuckled.

'A David-and-Goliath battle in there'

Lydia Guzman, a civil-rights activist and longtime Arpaio foe, called the trial “painful” to watch.

“I love the DOJ, but I think that they probably could have sent some more experienced lawyers,” she said. “I think this is administration stuff.”

Guzman said she believed President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice held off on assigning its more seasoned attorneys to the case.

Arpaio was one of Trump’s earliest supporters, and the two share matching hard-line immigration platforms.

“Honestly, I think this is a toss of the coin,” Guzman said when asked for her prediction on the trial’s outcome. “It was a David-and-Goliath battle in there, and that’s what hurt.”

Willful violation or an unclear order?

The court order at issue came during the course of a decade-old racial-profiling case against the Sheriff’s Office. U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow issued a preliminary order against the agency in December 2011.

The order stated that deputies could not detain any individuals solely because they were suspected of being in the country without authorization and were not accused of a crime.

Deputies continued to detain these individuals, turning them over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Border Patrol, until the order became permanent in May 2013.

Prosecutors from the U.S. Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section said the practice led to at least 171 victims illegally detained.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/...ial/441674001/

Oh it's definitely an "unclear order"!!

FREE SHERIFF JOE!!