Joe Arpaio's trial starts today

[GIGObuster]

So, he could either be a stinky liar and a willful abuser of power, or he was/is losing his memory and an incompetent. Regardless how one chooses it, it really demonstrated a lot of blindness by the people that voted for the likes of him for so many years.

[Kimballkid]

@Gatopescado

How do they know in advance the trial will last eight days?

Experience with this type of trial. They usually schedule trials for a certain amount of time and they are usually pretty accurate.

[DesertDog]

@GIGObuster

So, he could either be a stinky liar and a willful abuser of power, or he was/is losing his memory and an incompetent. Regardless how one chooses it, it really demonstrated a lot of blindness by the people that voted for the likes of him for so many years.

Exactly. He was all, “I’m in charge and what I say goes!” until a few years ago when it looked like there could be consequences for those actions – jail time and/or fines paid out of his pocket instead of the taxpayers’. Then the tune changed to "It was my subordinates who did that… I didn’t understand the order… You’ll have to ask my lieutenant… "

I pointed out in the election four years ago (the last one he won) that either he wasn’t really the sheriff after all or was lying through his teeth; either way, he no longer deserved the job. His supporters disagreed.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@GIGObuster

So, he could either be a stinky liar and a willful abuser of power, or he was/is losing his memory and an incompetent. Regardless how one chooses it, it really demonstrated a lot of blindness by the people that voted for the likes of him for so many years.

Thanks for the explanation. I prefer to go with “a stinky liar and a willful abuser of power” anyway, so that there’s no question that he was, in fact, responsible for his actions and the actions of those he directed.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

Today was excellent! It’s difficult to believe this isn’t a movie script or a comedy sketch. Check this out:

Arpaio’s PR adviser, a woman who spent nearly a quarter of a century defending/explaining/touting Joe Arpaio, is at it once again.

On Tuesday, 12 News’ Brahm Resnik caught up with Lisa Allen outside the federal courthouse, wherein she explained that Arpaio didn’t intentionally ignore a highly publicized federal judge’s 2011 order to stop enforcing federal immigration law.

Allen told Resnik that Arpaio didn’t have a clue about the order and neither did any of his top deputies, the people who were running the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

@Lisa Allen

I don’t think he knew (about the order). I don’t think anybody knew. What I say, and it’s not particularly flattering, we didn’t ignore the thing, we didn’t do any of that. If we were guilty of anything, it was maybe that we were a little lazy and a little incompetent.

Yep… you read that right… that’s the new defensive tactic.

The rest of the article is droll ridicule:

For 17 months, sheriff’s officials had no idea that a federal judge had barred them from detaining immigrants based solely on suspicions they were here illegally?

Not a single one read the front-page Republic story the day after Judge Murray Snow issued his injunction in December 2011?

The one entitled: “Judge curbs MCSO tactics”

The one that began: “A federal judge issued a ruling Friday that will curtail the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office’s ability to target illegal immigrants …”

Nobody in the sheriff’s office was curious enough to read alllll the way to the fourth paragraph, which said: “The judge’s ruling also bars all sheriff’s officers from arresting any person ‘only on knowledge or reasonable belief, without more, that the person is unlawfully present within the United States.’ "

What a world we live in.

ETA: Martin Shkreli is trying more-or-less the same tactic!

[BubbaDog]

@Drunky_Smurf

He clearly deserves the death penalty.

Score two for the whoosh

[DesertDog]

Now he’s asking SCOTUS to step in. Typical conservative move: Condemning “activist judges” unless they’re the only thing standing between him and a conviction. Closing arguments today. Stand by for more twisting and turning.

[SteveG1]

@DesertDog

Now he’s asking SCOTUS to step in. Typical conservative move: Condemning “activist judges” unless they’re the only thing standing between him and a conviction. Closing arguments today. Stand by for more twisting and turning.

No! No activist librul judges for him! No legislating from the bench for him!

NO SOUP FOR YOU!

[DesertDog]

Well, the closing arguments are about as expected.

@AZCentral

[Judge] Bolton asked federal prosecutor John Keller to whom the “clear and definite” portion applied.

“So it had to be clear and definite to a person in the position of the defendant, or is it clear and definite as explained by other people in his office?” she said. “Or does it have to, on its face, be clear and definite, without anyone else explaining it?”

Keller said it was the defendant’s responsibility to understand the order.

“When you’re under a court injunction, you don’t get to say, ‘Well, um, no one explained it to me sufficiently,’ ” he said, before citing case law. “The defendant may not avoid criminal contempt by ‘twisted interpretations’ or ‘tortured construction’ of the provisions of the order.”

Article here. The judge has a couple weeks to decide.

[SteveG1]

@DesertDog

Well, the closing arguments are about as expected.

Article here. The judge has a couple weeks to decide.

It’s simple. If the judge says “stop doing that” then you stop doing it. This fucker was just too damn arrogant to deal with it properly.

I hope they throw the damn book at him. Make an example.

[Ike_Witt]

@SteveG1

I hope they throw the damn book at him. Make an example.

I thought the charge was a misdemeanor, how much book can be thrown at him?

[SteveG1]

@Ike_Witt

I thought the charge was a misdemeanor, how much book can be thrown at him?

Jail time. No “mercy” for being a (corrupt) “lawman”, no “mercy” for pretending to be senile or pretending to not know/remember. No tiny fine to pay. No “community service” or “time off” for any reason.

Jail time.

You can lock someone up for contempt, can’t you?

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Snowboarder_Bo

He did so much harm to so many people, I hope to see pictures of him in the same pink clothes he made prisoners wear; fuck leniency due to his age.

I’m hardly an Arpaio fan, but I hope they treat him the same way that they treat any other prisoner once he’s convicted. Anything more - poetic or not - is just revenge fantasy.

[Bricker]

@SteveG1

Jail time. No “mercy” for being a (corrupt) “lawman”, no “mercy” for pretending to be senile or pretending to not know/remember. No tiny fine to pay. No “community service” or “time off” for any reason.

Jail time.

You can lock someone up for contempt, can’t you?

Yes. Although it’s you might be thinking of a different kind of situation. A contemnor may be jailed in order to compel him to end his contumacious conduct. (“Testify, or you’ll go to jail until you do.”) That is civil contempt, punished in summary fashion, and it’s said that the contemnor holds the key to his own cell: at any time he wishes, he may comply with the court’s command and purge himself of the contempt.

In this case, Arapio is charged with criminal contempt in violation of 18 USC § 401 et seq, which makes it a crime to knowingly and willfully disobey a lawful order of a court of the United States. The sentence may be up to six months imprisonment.

Arapio seems to be claiming (among other defenses) that he’s entitled to a jury before a court convicts him of a crime and imposes any sentence of confinement.

I’m not sure how you feel about that proposition as a general matter, and indeed in my experience many people are surprised to learn that the right to a trial by jury does not extend to “petty,” offenses such as this one. But as the Supreme Court observed in District of Columbia v. Clawans:

It is settled by the decisions of this Court, which need not now be discussed in detail, that the right of trial by jury, thus secured, does not extend to every criminal proceeding. At the time of the adoption of the Constitution there were numerous offenses, commonly described as “petty,” which were tried summarily without a jury, by justices of the peace in England, and by police magistrates or corresponding judicial officers in the Colonies, and punished by commitment to jail, a workhouse, or a house of correction. We think, as the Court of Appeals held and respondent concedes, that, apart from the prescribed penalty, the offense of which petitioner was convicted is, by its nature, of this class, and that were it not for the severity of the punishment, the offender could not, under our decisions, claim a trial by jury as of right.

That the crime of contempt falls into this category was confirmed as recently as 1966 in Cheff v. Schnackenberg.

So: there’s no real question that federal law, as it now stands, permits a non-jury verdict and imposition of a six-month sentence.

[elucidator]

So, being launched by trebuchet into the Grand Canyon is pretty much out of the question?

[beowulff]

@elucidator

So, being launched by trebuchet into the Grand Canyon is pretty much out of the question?

Littering is illegal.

[Chimera]

The only problem with sentencing him to his own outdoor camps is that they’re run by people who used to work for him and are likely loyal to him.

[running_coach]

@beowulff

Littering is illegal.

I’m sure the animals will clean that up in no time.

[pool]

Hmmm I had no idea that I guess in federal court you could be refused trial by jury, learn something new everyday. Also that seems bizarre the conversations with his lawyer wouldn’t be protected under attorney-client privilege, that seems fucked up, but maybe these conversations weren’t held during the attorney acting in that capacity but as a personal friend maybe?

[beowulff]

@Chimera

The only problem with sentencing him to his own outdoor camps is that they’re run by people who used to work for him and are likely loyal to him.

Actually, they’re gone.
Penzone closed them after he was elected.