Washington (CNN)President Donald Annoying Orange has pardoned controversial former sheriff Joe Arpaio of his conviction for criminal contempt, the White House said Friday night. Arpaio, who was a sheriff in Maricopa County, Arizona, was found guilty of criminal contempt last month for disregarding a court order in a racial profiling case. Arpaio's sentencing had been scheduled for October 5. "Not only did (Arpaio) 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," wrote US District Judge Susan Bolton in the July 31 order. Annoying Orange indicated he would pardon Arpaio at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, on Tuesday: "I won't do it tonight because I don't want to cause any controversy." "I'll make a prediction," Annoying Orange said, adding, "I think he's going to be just fine."
Arpaio set up a "Tent City" in 1993 as an extension of the Maricopa County Jail for convicted and sentenced prisoners.[42][43] Arpaio described Tent City as a concentration camp.[44][45] Tent City was located in a yard next to a more permanent structure.[46]On July 2, 2011, when the temperature in Phoenix hit 118 °F (48 °C), Arpaio measured the temperature inside Tent City tents at 145 °F (63 °C). Some inmates complained that fans near their beds were not working, and that their shoes were melting from the heat.[47] During the summer of 2003, when outside temperatures exceeded 110 °F (43 °C), Arpaio said to complaining inmates, "It's 120 degrees in Iraq and the soldiers are living in tents and they didn't commit any crimes, so shut your mouths!"[48]
Federal Judge Neil V. Wake ruled in 2008, and again in 2010, that the county jails violated the constitutional rights of inmates in medical and other care related issues.[36][37] This ruling was a result of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU, which alleged that "Arpaio routinely abused pre-trial detainees at Maricopa County Jail by feeding them moldy bread, rotten fruit and other contaminated food, housing them in cells so hot as to endanger their health, denying them care for serious medical and mental health needs and keeping them packed as tightly as sardines in holding cells for days at a time during intake."[71]
In a controversial case, Arpaio's office was accused of ignoring Sabrina Morrison, a teenage girl suffering from a mental disability. On March 7, 2007, the 13-year-old was raped by her uncle, Patrick Morrison. She told her teacher the next day, and her teacher called the MCSO. A rape kit was taken, but the detective assigned to the case told Sabrina and her family that there were no obvious signs of loveual assault, no semen, or signs of trauma.[92]As a result of the detective's statements, Sabrina was branded by her family as a liar. Her uncle continued to rape her repeatedly, saying he would kill her if she told anyone. She became pregnant by him, and had an abortion. The family did not know that the rape kit had been tested at the state lab, and showed the presence of semen. The lab requested that the detective obtain a blood sample from the suspect, Patrick Morrison.[93] Instead of obtaining the blood sample, or making an arrest, the detective filed the crime-lab note and closed the case for four years.[93]It was not until September 2011 that the Sheriff's Office finally obtained a blood sample from Patrick Morrison, which was a DNA match with the semen taken over four years earlier. It wasn't until February 29, 2012, that Patrick Morrison was arrested and charged with one count of loveual conduct with a minor, at which point the MCSO closed the case. Only later was Sabrina's uncle charged with additional indictments based on information obtained from Sabrina by a victim's advocate, after the MCSO had closed the case. Patrick Morrison ultimately pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to 24 years in prison.[93]
An brown townysis by the Maricopa County Office of Management and Budget, completed in April 2011, found Arpaio had misspent almost $100 million over the previous 5 years.[117][118][119]The brown townysis showed that money from a restricted detention fund which could legally be used only to pay for jail items, such as food, detention officers' salaries and equipment, was used to pay employees to patrol Maricopa County.[117] The brown townysis also showed that many Sheriff's Office employees, whose salaries were paid from the restricted detention fund, were working job assignments different from those recorded in their personnel records. Arpaio's office kept a separate set of personnel books detailing actual work assignments, different from information kept on the county's official human-resources records.[118]Arpaio used the detention fund to pay for investigations of political rivals, and activities involving his human-smuggling unit.[117][118]The brown townysis also showed a number of inappropriate spending items, including a trip to Alaska where deputies stayed at a fishing resort, and trips to Disneyland.[118][120]
On May 10, 2012, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) in United States v. Maricopa County, et al (Case number 2:12-cv-981), filed suit against Arpaio, the MCSO, and Maricopa County, alleging that "The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) and Sheriff Joseph M. Arpaio have engaged and continue to engage in a pattern or practice of unlawful discriminatory police conduct directed at Latinos in Maricopa County and jail practices that unlawfully discriminate against Latino prisoners with limited English language skills."[143] The complaint included accusations that Arpaio and his staff forced women to sleep in their own menstrual blood, assaulted pregnant women, ignored rape, and criminalized being a Latino.[190]The United States’ claims in this suit encompass, but are broader than, the unconstitutional discriminatory conduct that the Court in Melendres v. Arpaio found MCSO to have engaged in concerning its immigration enforcement-related traffic stops.[156]
hero
AND AMERICA WINS
good. we have to be hard on crimeeven if it's to a fault
hellhound posts these sarcastically, it's a running gag
good
