Federal judge finds against Arpaio in civil rights pre-trial motion News
Federal judge finds against Arpaio in civil rights pre-trial motion

[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the District of Arizona [official website] issued a pre-trial order Monday accepting another court’s finding of racial profiling by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio [official profile]. Hearing a lawsuit brought by the US Department of Justice [official website] (DOJ), US District Court Judge Roslyn Silver accepted the finding [Arizona Republic report] from a previous case brough by the ACLU that found Arpaio racially profiled against Hispanic drivers in traffic stops and said the DOJ would not need to litigate this issue. The DOJ filed charges against the Sheriff’s Office for discriminatory practices in traffic stops, work and home raids, and in county jails, as well as claims of retaliation. The remaining issues will be argued at trial, scheduled [Reuters report] for August 10 in Phoenix. The DOJ filed [JURIST report] the suit alleging discriminatory conduct against Maricopa County, Arizona, the MCSO and Arpaio in 2012.

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] ruled in April that Arpaio, engaged in practices of racial profiling [JURIST report] when conducting traffic stops. In January, a federal court ruled [JURIST report] Maricopa County officials may not enforce two Arizona identity-theft laws used to convict hundreds of undocumented immigrant workers. In October of last year a federal judge ordered [JURIST report] Arpaio to undergo the same training as his deputies to assist in the prevention of racial profiling and unlawful detention in the Sheriff’s Office as part of the ongoing case against Arpaio for racial profiling. In 2013 a federal judge ruled that Arpaio and his department engaged in unconstitutional racial profiling [JURIST report] during the execution of immigration patrols.