Why People are Pissed (or Thrilled) About the Pardon of Joe Arpaio

[jimhines]

Surprising nobody, Trump issued a presidential pardon for ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio last week. Arpaio had been jailed for criminal contempt, after he refused to obey a court order “to stop detaining people because he merely suspected them of being undocumented immigrants.”

Trump described Arpaio as a “patriot,” someone who “kept Arizona safe,” and cited his “years of admirable service to our nation.” Arpaio tweeted out his thanks:

Thank you @realdonaldtrump for seeing my conviction for what it is: a political witch hunt by holdovers in the Obama justice department!

— Joe Arpaio (@RealSheriffJoe) August 26, 2017

 

(Note: Arpaio’s contempt conviction came from U.S. District Judge Susan R. Bolton, a registered independent nominated to the court in 2000 by President Clinton, following a recommendation from Republican senator Jon Kyl of Arizona.)

Trump and Arpaio: Stoking the Birtherism Flames

The Trump/Arpaio relationship goes back years. Arpaio was a strong supporter of Trump’s Birtherism movement. Arpaio assigned a five-man “cold case posse” to investigate Obama’s birth certificate, eventually announcing it was a “computer-generated forgery.” I’m curious how much taxpayer money Arpaio spent on that particular conspiracy theory.

Trump sent him a personally written thank-you note, and praised him on Twitter as well:

Congratulations to @RealSheriffJoe on his successful Cold Case Posse investigation which claims @BarackObama‘s ‘birth certificate’ is fake

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 18, 2012

 

Trump had Arpaio as a speaker at a campaign rally in 2015, where Arpaio again brought up Obama’s birth certificate.

Arpaio’s “Years of Admirable Service”

Here are some highlights from Arpaio’s “patriotic” career in law enforcement.

• 1993: Arpaio set up a “Tent City” for ~1400 prisoners convicted of non-violent crimes. He literally described it as a concentration camp. Temperatures in the tents reached 145 degrees.
• 1996: Three months after federal investigators warned Arpaio that his jailers were using a “restraint chair” to abuse inmates, inmate Scott Norberg was killed while jailers tried to force him into the chair.
  • Paraplegic Richard Post, arrested for possessing one gram of marijuana, was strapped to the restraint chair for six hours for demanding a catheter so he could urinate. The jailers broke his neck.
• 1999: Arpaio and his staff staged a fake assassination attempt and framed James Saville, who ended up spending 4 years in jail. This fraud ended up costing taxpayers well over $1 million.
• 2000: Arpaio set up a “jail cam,” streaming images from the jail on the web. The site noted that viewers “may see violence or sexually inappropriate behavior,” and included a webcam of female inmates using the bathroom.
• 2004: Arpaio’s “inept and bumbling SWAT team” raided a home and burned it to the ground. One member drove the family’s 10-month-old puppy back into the burning home, where it died. “Deputies reportedly laughed as the dog’s owners came unglued as it perished in the blaze.”
• 2011: The Justice Department released findings showing “Wide-ranging Discrimination Against Latinos” under Arpaio’s leadership.

Racial Profiling and Anti-Immigration Efforts

Some of Arpaio’s tactics included:

• Stopping cars and detaining people just because they’re Hispanic, in order to run immigration status checks.
• Defying court orders to stop racial profiling. (This is what got him jailed for contempt.)
• Employing jailers who referred to Latinos as “wetbacks,” “Mexican bitches,” and “stupid Mexicans.”
• “MCSO detention officers have forced Latino prisoners with limited English skills to sign key legal documents printed in English, in which they forfeited key rights.“
• A 2012 Justice Department complaint documents many more examples of discrimination against Latinos under Arpaio’s leadership.

“America’s Toughest Sheriff”

Trump and many of his base love Arpaio for his so-called toughness. But Arpaio isn’t “tough.” He’s a bully and a bigot. He commented recently:

.@RealSheriffJoe: “If they can go after me, they can go after anyone in this country.” #Hannity https://t.co/cIFDqXeKBh pic.twitter.com/POGavxfMRA

— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 24, 2017

 

The idea that the law could apply to him — that he could face consequences for knowingly and deliberately defying a court order — seems an alien concept. He thinks himself above the law.

I can see why he and Trump get along so well.

His attitude’s mirror Trump’s own comments about Mexicans as criminals and rapists. And a lot of folks support Arpaio’s anti-immigration crusade, and his determination to make jail so horrible it will deter people from committing crimes.

I’d ask those folks if they believe in the Constitution, and that law enforcement officials should follow it. Specifically, the Eighth Amendment, which states:

“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted.”

Cruel and unusual punishment. Things like…

• Subjecting prisoners to 145-degree tents.
• Refusing insulin to a diabetic prisoner, who died as a result.
• Beating a prisoner to death.
• Creating an environment with a suicide rate of 24 percent.

Or maybe we should look at the Fourth Amendment:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”

In other words, if you support pulling people over, raiding their homes, raiding their workplaces, just because they’re Hispanic? Congratulations! You’re not just an asshole, you’re also anti-American and anti-Constitution.

I haven’t even touched on instances of Arpaio using the power of his office to attack and punish his enemies, or his neglect of hundreds of sexual assault cases, or the lack of prenatal care and infant deaths that resulted, or destroying evidence in a civil rights lawsuit, or so much more.

I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know what the future holds for Arpaio in terms of civil lawsuits or state charges or the rest.

But I know what I think of Trump and his base holding Arpaio up as a “patriot.” I know what I think of describing Arpaio’s crimes against his constituents as “admirable service to our nation.”

You can be an American who believes in equality and the Constitution. Or you can support Trump’s pardon of Joe Arpaio.

I don’t see any way you can be both.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

Comments

[dewline]

Speaking as a paranoid Canadian, my fear is that Arpaio will get the Homeland Security portfolio. ASAP.

[thewayne]

I know of many non-Americans who have eliminated travel plans to the USA because of our current POTUS. While Arpaio might be nominated for Homeland Security, he'd still have to go through Senate confirmation, and that would be far from smooth sailing.

[thewayne]

I worked in the computer department of Phoenix Police for nine years when Sheriff Joke was elected. The primary job of a sheriff's department is to provide law enforcement services and protection to communities who are too small to afford their own police department, and to provide jail services for county courts. That's about it.

Joke spent his time doing prostitution stings in downtown Phoenix. He arranged his "Sheriff's Posse" wherein one posse member was clocked doing 145 down the Superstition Freeway to "blow carbon out of the carburetor". The screening for posse members was so lax that people with criminal convictions became members and were issued guns.

There was one person, I believe more than one, who were suspected of involvement in murders who managed to escape to Europe, and their country refused to extradite them back to Arizona because his Tent City grossly violated the Geneva Convention for the treatment of prisoners.

Meanwhile, while all of this shit and shenanigans was going on, the crime rate in unincorporated Maricopa County took off like an F-16 because there were no deputies around to fight it.

Prior to his inflicting himself upon Maricopa County, Joke was a member of the Drug Enforcement Agency, where he was known as Dime Bag Joe. He went in for frequent small busts that got himself lots of publicity, while the rest of the agents worked hard on rolling up bigger bosses. Myself, I prefer the latter type of officer.

For me, you can ignore all of the above, and boil it down to one simple question. You have a friend or relative who is arrested for whatever. They end up with a hard-nose judge and can't afford bail, and you and your friends can't come up with the money. They are going to jail until the trial. Do you want them to go to Tent City? Even when I posed that question to my parents, they still voted for Joke.

No. Joke should have been voted out of office after his first term. But he was "America's Toughest Sheriff" and was great at turfing his opponents. And now, just as we're about to see some justice served, even on a misdemeanor conviction that would see a fine and a slap on the wrist, the Cheetoh Benito pardons him. And possibly commits an impeachable offense, according to some articles that I've seen, as it was for direct personal gain.