The rule of law as smoke screen

Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio was convicted of defying a court order to stop detaining suspected undocumented immigrants. United States District Judge Susan R. Bolton found him guilty of criminal contempt of court, a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail.

An officer of the law put himself above the law and legal system.

For years Arpaio violated the rights of Latinos, stopping people based on racial profiling, detaining them based solely on the suspicion that they were in the country illegally, and turning them over to the immigration authorities.

In 2011 he was ordered to halt detention based solely on suspicion of a person’s immigration status when there was no evidence that a state law had been broken.

But Mr. Arpaio persisted.

In 2013 Judge Snow ruled that his office had continued to routinely violate the rights of Latinos.

Then, in 2015, Judge Snow found Mr. Arpaio in civil contempt of court for violating the initial order, and prosecutors charged him with criminal contempt.

Judge Bolton ruled that Mr. Arpaio had willfully violated the 2011 court order because,

“Not only did Defendant abdicate responsibility, he announced to the world and to his subordinates that he was going to continue business as usual no matter who said otherwise.

The evidence at trial proves beyond a reasonable doubt and the Court finds that Judge Snow issued a clear and definite order enjoining Defendant from detaining persons for further investigation without reasonable suspicion that a crime has been or is being committed; that Defendant knew of the order; and that Defendant willfully violated the order by failing to do anything to ensure his subordinates’ compliance and by directing them to continue to detain persons for whom no criminal charges could be filed.”

For those who forgot, or never knew,  “America’s toughest sheriff,” made jail inmates wear pink underwear, served food that some prisoners called inedible, regularly held undocumented immigrants past their court-ordered release dates to ensure that they would be picked up by immigration agents, and vowed to investigate President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

He was also accused of abusing his authority to investigate political opponents.

In spite of Arpaio’s defiance to the rule of law, while Trump skipped over the established procedure dealing with pardons that includes petitions to prepare, letters to solicit, character affidavits to notarize, background checks to be conducted, and federal prosecutors to be consulted, a process routed through the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, he was given a presidential pardon.

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This was cheered by the “law and order” crowd.

Meanwhile those who as infants and minors were brought to this country illegally, are being held accountable for their parents action. To justify ending DACA, Jeff Sessions insisted that doing so was necessary because of the rule of law.

“As the Attorney General, it is my duty to ensure that the laws of the United States are enforced and that the Constitutional order is upheld.

No greater good can be done for the overall health and well-being of our Republic, than preserving and strengthening the impartial rule of law. Societies where the rule of law is treasured are societies that tend to flourish and succeed.

Societies where the rule of law is subject to political whims and personal biases tend to become societies afflicted by corruption, poverty, and human suffering.”

And yet, while those who fall under DACA have committed no crimes, Arpaio, who committed crimes, is pardoned by avoiding the established process.

Obviously the rule of law can be very fluid when it comes to a person who shares the bigotry so plainly expressed by a president who characterized those coming from Mexico as rapists and thieves, who claimed to be woefully ignorant about white supremacist organizations, and who couldn’t bring himself to speak out strongly against the bigotry so clearly expressed in Charlottesville, who acted on it by profiling people with Brown skin.

But it is very strict when people who, through no fault of their own want to succeed in the only country they have ever known.

You cannot cheer the pardoning of Arpaio, a clear violation of the rule of law, while justifying the ending of DACA based on the rule of law.

 

 

 

 

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