Arpaio's office guilty of profiling, judge rules http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crime/arpaio-s-office-guilty-of-profiling-judge-rules/article_20f78423-d3be-5848-aca8-11c4142097e6.html5/25/13
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."
