By JJ Hensley The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Jun 21, 2013 2:15 PM

Attorneys for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio have filed a notice to appeal last month’s federal court ruling that determined the agency engaged in widespread racial profiling through its immigration-enforcement efforts.

The notice was formally filed with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday afternoon and lists seven specific issues the Sheriff’s Office is challenging in the ruling U.S. District Judge Murray Snow issued in late May.

The Sheriff’s Office wants the circuit court, widely considered the most liberal in the country, to consider whether Snow erred when he prohibited deputies from detaining suspected undocumented immigrants while they contact federal officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and whether Snow was wrong when he barred sheriff’s deputies from detaining people suspected of violating the state laws that target illegal immigration.

The filing also indicates that Arpaio’s attorneys want the circuit court to consider whether deputies violated constitutional protections that ensure equal protection and prohibit unwarranted searches and seizures during traffic stops related to immigration enforcement.

Snow issued a detailed ruling in late May that found sheriff’s deputies discriminated against Latino drivers during the agency’s immigration-enforcement efforts, particularly the large-scale “saturation patrols” the Sheriff’s Office conducted in the Valley from 2007 through 2010.

The lawsuit that brought the matter before Snow was filed by Manuel de Jesus Ortega Melendres, a Mexican day laborer who was in the country with a tourist visa when he was detained for more than nine hours following a 2007 traffic stop in Cave Creek.

The suit was later expanded to a class-action that included every Latino driver sheriff’s deputies have stopped since 2007.

Critics of Arpaio’s immigration-enforcement had long claimed the agency engaged in racial profiling and were vindicated by Snow’s ruling. Many of those same critics pressured the County Board of Supervisors to refuse funding for an appeal.

Board members, aside from Mary Rose Wilcox, refused to take a public stance on the issue, with the majority of supervisors saying there were outstanding questions over legalities and logistics of the appeals process.

The office of County Attorney Bill Montgomery was reviewing the legal issue of who had the authority to order or deny an appeal, but a spokesman did not immediately comment Friday on what Montgomery had determined.

Cari Gerchick, a county spokeswoman, said on Friday that the board had taken no action on the case since before Snow’s ruling was made in late May.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/arizon...ng-appeal.html