U.S. District Judge Murray Snow issued the ruling Friday, more than eight months after a seven-day trial on the subject concluded. The trial examined longstanding allegations that Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s emphasis on immigration enforcement led deputies to target Latino drivers based on their race, and that by doing so, they violated the constitutional rights of Maricopa County residents and the sheriff’s own policies requiring constitutional policing.
Snow’s ruling will likely be appealed, as both sides promised throughout the trial to challenge whatever decision Snow rendered. However, Arpaio’s attorney said he was still reviewing the ruling Friday afternoon.
Dan Pochoda of the Arizona chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union called the ruling “a real vindication for the community. It was a terrific win — it was a very solid, comprehensive piece of work, and clearly demonstrated the unconstitutionality from top to bottom at MCSO for many years.”
The class of Hispanic citizens that brought the racial-profiling lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Office never sought monetary damages. Instead, the group asked for the court to issue injunctions barring Arpaio’s office from discriminatory policing.
Snow obliged — and indicated more remedies could be ordered in the future.
“Therefore, in the absence of further facts that would give rise to reasonable suspicion or probable cause that a violation of either federal criminal law or applicable state law is occurring, the MCSO is enjoined from (1) enforcing its LEAR policy (on checking the immigration status of people detained without state charges), (2) using Hispanic ancestry or race as any factor in making law enforcement decisions pertaining to whether a person is authorized to be in the country, and (3) unconstitutionally lengthening stops,” Snow wrote in his 142-page ruling.
“The evidence introduced at trial establishes that, in the past, the MCSO has aggressively protected its right to engage in immigration and immigration–related enforcement operations even when it had no accurate legal basis for doing so,” Show said.
Snow was the sole arbiter of facts in the bench trial conducted without a jury. He was tasked with weighing the plaintiffs’ arguments that the Sheriff’s Office developed an immigration enforcement policy that encouraged deputies to discriminate against Latino drivers, depriving them of their Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection. A ruling from Snow late last year expanded the plaintiffs in the 41/2-year-old case to cover a class that includes every Latino driver the Sheriff’s Office has stopped since 2007. The plaintiffs were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and pro-bono attorneys from a Bay Area law firm, and were faced with the burden of proof in the case.
The case began when Manuel de Jesus Ortega Melendres, a Mexican tourist who was in the United States legally, was stopped outside a church in Cave Creek where day laborers were known to gather. Melendres, the passenger in a car driven by a White driver, claims that deputies detained him for nine hours and that the detention was unlawful.
Eventually, the case grew to include complaints from two Hispanic siblings from Chicago who felt they were profiled by sheriff's deputies, and from an assistant to former Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon whose Hispanic husband claims he was detained and cited while nearby White motorists were treated differently.
The lawsuit did not seek monetary damages. Instead, the plaintiffs asked for the kind of injunctive relief that the Sheriff's Office has resisted in the past — a declaration that spells out what deputies may or may not do when stopping potential suspects, and a court-appointed monitor to make sure the agency lives by those rules.
Snow gave each side 20 hours to present their case in a tightly controlled trial that took place in late July and early August in the federal courthouse in downtown Phoenix.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs took a three-pronged approach, using Arpaio’s own statements about undocumented immigrants along with racially insensitive requests from constituents for immigration enforcement to show the sheriff’s callous attitude toward the rights of Latinos and his the agency’s intention to discriminate. Data showing that Latino drivers were more likely to be stopped during the sheriff’s immigration sweeps, and that those stops were likely to last longer, was designed to show the outcome of that intent. And statements from residents who claimed they were victims of profiling was intended to illustrate the impact of the sheriff’s policies.
Arpaio’s attorneys used their allotted time taking apart the statistical data and relying heavily on the testimony of sheriff’s deputies, commanders and administrators who testified repeatedly that the agency does not tolerate racial profiling, despite the lack of a policy expressly prohibiting the practice.
Source- azcentral.com