"Racial profiling trial begins for Arizona sheriff; Latinos’ civil suit precursor to case by Justice Dept." by Jacques Billeaud, Associated Press | July 20 2012
PHOENIX — Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s anti-illegal immigration patrols in Arizona are taking center stage in federal court in Phoenix....
PHOENIX — Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s anti-illegal immigration patrols in Arizona are taking center stage in federal court in Phoenix....
And there are the Blogger tools and HTML f***ing up again.
At a late June hearing, Tim Casey, who is defending Arpaio, said the sheriff wanted the trial so he could prove his critics wrong and remove the stigma that the racial profiling allegation carries.
‘‘What we want is resolution,’’ Casey said.
The DOJ lawsuit makes many of the same racial profiling allegations, but goes further to say that Arpaio’s office retaliated against its critics, punished Latino jail inmates with limited English skills for speaking Spanish and failed to adequately investigate a large number of sex-crimes cases.
No trial date in that case has been set.
Arizona State University law professor Carissa Byrne Hessick said that if Arpaio loses the case now being tried, the verdict would likely stand as the finding on whether Arpaio’s office racially profiles — and the sheriff likely wouldn’t be able to re-litigate the profiling allegations in the DOJ case. But Arpaio could dispute the other allegations, Hessick said.
If Arpaio wins, the DOJ wouldn’t be prevented from bringing its racial profiling allegations to trial.
Still, the judge overseeing that case might be inclined to rule against the federal agency on the racial profiling claim because there would be a fellow judge who concluded that the facts don’t support a ruling that Arpaio’s office discriminated against Latinos.
Arpaio has said the DOJ lawsuit is a politically motivated attack by the Obama administration as a way to court Latino voters in a presidential election year. DOJ officials say the department began its initial civil rights inquiry of Arpaio’s office during the Bush administration and notified the sheriff of its formal investigation a few months after Obama took office.
Arpaio has staked his reputation on immigration enforcement and, in turn, won support and financial contributors from people across the country who helped him build a $4 million campaign war chest.
The patrols have brought allegations that Arpaio himself ordered some of them not based on reports of crime but letters from Arizonans who complained about people with dark skin congregating in an area or speaking Spanish.
Some of the people who filed the lawsuit were stopped by deputies in regular patrols, while others were stopped in his special immigration sweeps. During the sweeps, deputies flood an area of a city — in some cases, heavily Latino areas — over several days to seek out traffic violators and arrest other offenders....
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"Arizona sheriff testifies in profiling trial" July 25, 2012
PHOENIX — An Arizona sheriff known for his hard-line stance on illegal immigration took the witness stand Tuesday and faced allegations that his immigration sweeps amount to racial profiling.
Maricopa County’s sheriff, Joe Arpaio, testifying at a civil trial, was questioned about statements that critics said displayed prejudice.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers asked Arpaio about a statement in which he called illegal immigrants ‘‘dirty’’ and another that seemed to express admiration for the Ku Klux Klan. Arpaio said the statement about immigrants was taken out of context. He also was asked about a 2007 appearance on a news show. The host spoke with Arpaio about comparisons between his department and the KKK, and the sheriff said, ‘‘I think it’s an honor. It means we are doing something.’’
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Related:
"The federal abuse-of-power inquiry into America’s self-proclaimed toughest sheriff — Maricopa County’s Joe Arpaio — has been closed, with prosecutors saying no charges will be filed."
What?
"Obama later said the administration would no longer enforce the law.... “because it was the right thing to do.”
Too bad he doesn't feel that way about the pot, huh?
Related: Arizona police get OK on immigrant law
Otherwise known as the ‘‘show me your papers’’ law.
"Police caught in Arizona immigration law’s legal minefield" by Jacques Billeaud and Nicholas Riccardi | Associated Press, September 07, 2012
PHOENIX — More than two years after it was signed into law, the most contentious part of Arizona’s landmark immigration legislation is expected to go into effect following a federal court ruling that was issued late Wednesday.
But the US Supreme Court laid a legal minefield that Arizona must navigate when the critical provision takes effect. The clause, one of the few significant ones that the high court left standing in a June ruling, requires all Arizona police officers to check the immigration status of people they stop while enforcing other laws and suspect are in the country illegally.
While preserving that requirement, the Supreme Court left the door open to arguments that the law leads to civil rights violations.
Attorneys would need victims to make that case.
Civil rights activists are preparing to scour the state for such victims....
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Also see: Suit filed over Ariz. immigrant policy
Who didn't see that coming?
Also see: Arizona Sheriff's Office
So what else has been happening in the county?
"Defendant took cyanide after guilty verdict" by Paul Davenport | Associated Press, July 28, 2012
PHOENIX — A former Wall Street trader who collapsed in court after being found guilty of arson and later died was found to have committed suicide with cyanide, according to an autopsy released Friday.
The Maricopa County medical examiner’s office toxicology tests showed Michael Marin, 53, had the poison in his system.
Related: Arizona Arsonist Sentences Himself to Death
The report also noted an apparent suicide note e-mailed by Martin shortly before his death and cyanide found in his car afterward.
After he was found guilty of arson in June, Marin put his head in his hands and appeared to put something in his mouth. He then drank from a sports bottle.
Marin was not in custody during his trial.
Defendants who are not in custody and other people entering courthouses are not strip-searched, so it is possible to hide something like pills in a pocket or elsewhere on their person, said Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose officers are responsible for custody of prisoners and providing security in courtrooms.
Court security personnel screen visitors arriving in the courthouses.
A court spokeswoman did not immediately respond to queries from the Associated Press.
Marin’s death was a bizarre ending to a case that began in 2009 when he emerged from his burning Phoenix-area mansion in scuba gear.
Prosecutors said he torched his home when he could not keep up with the payments. Marin faced seven to 21 years in prison.
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Why didn't he just try and leave the state?
Driver with toddler crashes airport gate onto runway
A woman driving with a small child in her car crashed through a gate at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and drove onto the runway — the latest in a series of similar incidents across the country that have raised questions on whether US airports are secure. Such incidents are troublesome because a vehicle that crashed into a jetliner landing or taking off could cause a catastrophe, whether it was an intoxicated driver behind the wheel or a terrorist, said Jeff Price, an aviation professor at the Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Who would ever want to fly anymore?
Man's wife runs him over for not voting
Another love story:
Survivor welcomes possible Loughner guilty plea
Report: Loughner plans guilty plea in Tucson shootings
Court date today for suspect in Tucson shootings
Loughner pleads guilty to Ariz. shooting rampage
"Jared Loughner admits to shooting Gabrielle Giffords, others in Tuscon" by Fernanda Santos | New York Times, August 08, 2012
TUCSON — Jared L. Loughner pleaded guilty on Tuesday to killing six people and wounding 13 others last year during a meet-and-greet event here held by Gabrielle Giffords, then a member of the House of Representatives and the primary target of his rampage.
The plea brought a sudden resolution to a case that had seemed threatened by the fragility of Loughner’s mental state.
Loughner, 23, delivered his admission in a slurred monotone — ‘‘I plead guilty’’ — looking straight ahead from his seat at the defendant’s table, his back arched and his hands clasped in his lap.
He repeated the words 19 times, one for each of the counts to which he had agreed to plead guilty as part of a deal that will keep him in prison for the rest of his life.
He seemed subdued and resigned, telling Judge Larry A. Burns, who has presided over the case in US District Court, that he understood the consequences of his actions, as well as the implications of his plea, which offers him no chance of appeals.
This kid needed to be shut up for whatever reason.
At the hearing, Dr. Christina Pietz, a psychologist who treated Loughner at a federal hospital in Springfield, Mo., said his feelings had evolved — from regret for failing to kill Giffords, whom he had harbored a secret grudge against for several years, to remorse for wounding her and others and for taking people’s lives....
Because she rebuffed his romantic advances.
His plea brought a measure of victory to prosecutors, who were able to take Loughner off the streets without having to face the uncertain outcome of a trial, where they risked the possibility that his lawyers might sway a jury with an insanity defense....
Loughner began exhibiting odd behavior long before the shooting.
Classmates at Pima Community College described him as strange and eccentric; professors spoke of his ‘‘disorganized thought process,’’ Pietz said.
Once, he asked his parents if they could hear the same voices he had been hearing, she testified.
In written answers to her questions, his parents said they were worried he would kill himself.
In videos he made, Loughner said that he felt depressed and that he had the urge to kill someone.
On Jan. 8, 2011, he fired 31 shots from a 9mm semiautomatic pistol until he was tackled by onlookers as he tried to reload.
It took him 16 seconds to carry out the shooting....
If that is how it really happened. You don't expect me to believe an AmeriKan media account anymore, do you?
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"Loughner gets life for Arizona rampage; Victims, families face man who killed 6, hurt 12" by Fernanda Santos | New York Times, November 09, 2012
TUCSON — Jared L. Loughner slurred his words — a hallmark of his speech patterns during recent court appearances....
Because the government has forcibly medicated him into oblivion.
Loughner, who has been held at a federal hospital in Missouri for more than a year undergoing psychiatric examinations, has been given a diagnosis of schizophrenia but was deemed competent in August to agree to the plea deal, under which he is not eligible for parole or to appeal his sentence....
Because this guy has to be locked up and kept from talking like all these lone nuts that don't end up dead. Why?
Loughner, a community college student, had originally pleaded not guilty to 49 charges in the shooting rampage. He had for years exhibited signs of mental illness, including yelling out in high school classes and complaining about voices in his head.
At a court hearing in May 2011, he interrupted the proceedings with an incoherent outburst and was removed from the courtroom. It was at that hearing that Judge Burns ruled Loughner incompetent to stand trial.
Loughner was initially being medicated by force, under orders of the Bureau of Prisons, but has been voluntarily taking his medication since this summer.
It's called addiction.
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Also see:
Sunday Globe Special: Raising Arizona
The Arizona Agenda
Another Lone Nut in Arizona
Apathetic About Arizona Post
Sunday Globe Special: Arizona Gunman's Last Shot
Taking Shots in Arizona
Lovesick Loughner. Poor kid.
Suck on this one:
"A Phoenix woman who pretended to have cancer in order to raise money for breast implants has been sentenced to a year in jail and three years of probation."
Other articles about Arizona (brought to you by the Boston Globe):
Judge says Arizona’s abortion ban can take effect
Wounded border agent released from hospital
Friendly fire called possibility in Ariz. border shooting
Demolition on hold for Frank Lloyd Wright house in Phoenix
Study adds 65m years to Grand Canyon age
Natick man escapes serious injury when boulder falls into his SUV in Arizona
Time for me to roll on out of here for the night.
