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The Case for Pardoning Sheriff Joe
Over at Powerline, Paul Mirengoff lays out the argument. The nub:
To be sure, the pardon of Arpaio is, at least in part, a political act by a president who campaigned on a tough-as-nails immigration policy and who received Arpaio’s backing. But there’s a pretty good argument that the prosecution of Arpaio was also political.
It was the highly politicized, left-wing Obama Justice Department that chose to prosecute Arpaio in connection with the hot button political issue of enforcing immigration laws. The judge whose order Arpaio defied apparently was satisfied with civil contempt. Team Obama went criminal on the octogenarian sheriff. And it did so, according to Arpaio’s lawyers, just two weeks before he stood for reelection.
The pardon thus can be said to represent a political end to a political case.
Taking all things together, I’m still uncertain I quite approve of the pardon. But it was hardly the obvious, flagrant outrage against all that is good and just that most of the press would have us believe.
Published in General
Why do the police ask for everybody’s license and registration, (even , if they want to, for ID from passengers), take it back to their squad cars and hold you up,for 15-20 minutes? I’m under the impression it’s so they can determine if this person they stopped for a broken tail light might be a fugitive from justice, or wanted for delinquent child support. That’s what they’re doing, right: running the car occupants’ records?
If they can inquire into whether you’ve broken any other laws, why shouldn’t they, (as a matter of common sense, though I’m sure there’s some PC law about it) be able to inquire into whether you’re here legally? One does hear it said that driving is a privilege, not a right.
And why “insulted”? I don’t feel insulted when someone asks if I’m German or Scandinavian.
The problem is that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office did not pull over people for just a busted tail light. They literally pulled over people solely for being Hispanic. That is illegal. The Court’s told Arpaio over and over again to stop doing that. Finally, in respiration, the case was referred for a criminal contempt hearing and he was found to be in criminal contempt.
Another point: the Powerline blog you mention says judge said Arpaio couldn’t try to enforce immigration law because that’s the Feds’ job. But the Feds weren’t doing it.
(I wonder if this was during B. Hussein’s “prosecutorial discretion” period. Newsflash BTW: it is the opposite of prosecutorial “discretion” if the prez commands ’em not to prosecute.)
But remember, a few months ago we had a case establishing that the Feds cannot order states to enforce federal law. Okay–and if the Powerline writer is correct, state and local officials like Arpaio cannot enforce fed law voluntarily, either!
Guess what! Federal immigration law is unenforceable, under the present state of case law, unless the Feds want to send out local patrols.
Unacceptable.
The only time I would ask for everyone’s ID was after curfew if a car was filled with minors. Curfew violation was a state statute in Oregon. The length of time to run everyone’s ID was much longer before computers were installed in police cars. On Friday and Saturday nights when everything was done on the radio you had to wait your turn for the dispatcher to take your info. It’s much faster with computers.
On a traffic stop for a violation you can certainly ask someone if they’re a citizen, but they are not legally obligated to answer the question. It’s the same as asking someone, do you know fast you were going, or do you know why I stopped you? They are under no obligation to answer the question.
Oregon and Arizona require your insurance company to notify DMV that you’ve dropped your insurance. That will be available on the computer. So an officer no longer needs a broken taillight to pull you over. You just enter the plate and if your vehicle comes back uninsured that’s all you need to make a traffic stop. Your drivers license is not insured the vehicle is.
Well in a Federal court that presents another problem. Are police in states bordering Canada conducting traffic stops to determine citizenship?
It may vary from state to state, but a few years ago there was a well-publicized case where a passenger refused to furnish ID and was dragged out of the car and beaten. I didn’t think the police had a right to ask for ID except from driver, but a friend, a NH state cop, said it was standard procedure. I never researched it. But I hope you’re right.
From the Department of Justice:
You can’t beat someone if they don’t have ID. If someone didn’t have a license I asked them if they had any photo ID. I’d accept a Costco card, or employee ID for example. Now if I ran their name and they came back UTL (Unable To Locate) then it was off to the ID Division and fingerprints and a computer check that included the FBI database. I only had to do that once and my subject came back with a no bail warrant for immediate return to the State pen. He had been released from prison and never made any of his appointments to meet his parole officer. Four years of missed appointments to be exact.
That’s Leftist drivel and you know it. In real life, where most of us live, it goes more like this:
“Sir you were speeding, I need to see your license.” – – “No have.”
“Ok, sir, do you have any ID and your vehicle registration?” – – “No have.”
“Do you have anything which says you are supposed to be here, in this car?” – – “No have.”
Ok, Doug, so at this point you think the cop should tell the Illegal to have a nice day, and get back in the car?
What normal people think should happen next: “Sir, I need you to step out of the car, you are under arrest.”
I called my best friend’s son, a Sheriff’s Deputy, and read what you wrote (he laughed) and asked him how it really goes for him. The above is basically what he said.
Now, if you can post a few videos from Maricopa County police in which a cop says, “Gee there’s a Mexican-looking guy. Let’s pull him over and make him produce his birth certificate” I’ll be happy to eat my words. With catsup.
A deputy in Arizona?
My buddy’s son deals with as many, perhaps more, illegals as a Deputy in the Sanctuary county of Travis, here in Texas. The County is teeming with them, practically on every street corner.
Very funny, but not on point. The issue in Maricopa County was that Hispanics were being pulled over, not for speeding, but for DWH, Driving While Hispanic, Hispanics were four times more likely to be pulled over by the Maricopa County Sheriffs office for no cause than Non-Hispanics.
Then he is probably aware that anyone caught within 100 miles from the border without paper work can be immediately deported. It’s a bit more complicated when someone is caught beyond, and in some cases within that distance, especially if they can produce rent receipts, employment history, utility bills, etc.
Phoenix is about 181 miles from the border. Now a Maricopa deputy can certainly hold someone and notify ICE. That does not mean immediate deportation. ICE will probably arrange an immigration court appearance and release them, unless a serious criminal charge was involved in their detention.
It takes 681 days to process a case in immigration court in Arizona. Click on the link.
I’m sure that ICE will do their best to convince someone that immediate deportation is their best option, but if they opt for an attorney they are going be here for awhile. I seriously doubt that ICE is going to hold someone in detention for 681 days through the court process in a non-criminal traffic violation immigration case.
You might want to try doing some research.
Whatever. That has absolutely nothing to do with your false claim that Deputies were pulling people over just to “check their papers” as Obama put it. You are merely regurgitating Leftist pap with no proof. Post the videos. I demand ten videos as proof. Ten police videos where the cop had no reason to pull someone over, and asked for nothing other than a birth certificate. This was your claim, now back it up. You see, I believe in the Police – America would collapse without them. You using your HateTrump to disparage our officers is unacceptable. Back up your claim. Don’t try any more misdirection about ICE or 681 days or anything else. Prove that the Police were doing what you say.
Well, yeah. It’s not as if Maricopa county is a hotbed of immigration scofflaws from Korea. Stay real here.
I reread my comments, I stated that they were specifically targeted, not that they were being stopped without having to commit a violation.
I also checked my comments and didn’t find that I made any mention of Donald Trump, and I did say that I was fine with the decision to pardon Sheriff Joe.
Since I didn’t state that Hispanics were pulled over without cause, and since I’ve never borrowed money from you I really don’t feel I need to meet your demands for one video much less 10.
Peter got it wrong in the original post. George W. Bush appointed Federal Judge G. Murray Snow made the finding of civil contempt and Judge Snow recommended to the Justice Department that Arpaio be prosecuted for criminal contempt.
Since the criminal contempt was against Judge Snow’s orders, the criminal contempt trial was held before a new Judge, Susan Bolton, who found Arpaio to be in criminal contempt.
Well, that is when I pull out my Passport and politely tell the officer in question to write my ticket.
There’s been a great deal of legal detail in this thread, especially from the critics of the pardon. Many trees but no forest in my opinion. Maybe we could all stipulate that Sheriff Arpaio would not have been elected for a quarter century and Trump would not be POTUS if the GOP — which has controlled Congress for most of that quarter century — had insisted on a credible, honest enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws.
Focusing on detailed accusations from the most left-wing Justice Department in US history while ignoring the wholesale flouting of entire volumes of federal law is how you get Trump and Arpaio.
But virtue signallers gotta signal their virtue.
By the way, everyone remembers the panic that Trump put into the most talented field ever of GOP primary candidates, right? Remember the impressive list of employment enforcement measures Rubio started rattling off. How many has Marco introduced? Any working through committee?
Might as well be Senator Steve Martin from the great state of SNL: “Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
On some issues, a quarter century of alternately practicing wholesale deceit and accusing others of retail bad faith is simply too much. On immigration, the party, media and business elites have zero credibility with Republican voters.
And Trump had nothing to do with it guys.
You dont answer my question, and I really am interested.
Of course cops aren’t supposed to beat a passenger for not having ID. Still it happened in that instance, maybe because the passenger refused to show ID and refused to get out of the car.
I get that you can “profile” people based on their youthful appearance if there’s a curfew. But aside from that situation:
In your experience, can the police ask passengers for ID, and command them to exit the car if they don’t comply?
Once anyone refuses a police officer’s command, it’s teargas time or worse, in my experience, cuz the person has “resisted”. My question was:
whether the demand was legitimate in the first place?
Like Sandra Bland: her troubles started when she refused to extinguish her cigarette at the cop’s command. She said, “I don’t have to”, and as far as I know, she was right about that.
s
I’m not Hispanic but do have a score of relatives buried in US military cemeteries. If I still lived Ogdensburg, NY and the police were trying to disrupt a drug network being orchestrated from Canada, I would thank them for doing an unpleasant and intrusive job in order to protect my family.
Does anyone actually believe that the problem with US immigration enforcement is English-speaking Mexican-Americans with valid driver’s licenses, school IDs and insurance being swept up in massive police sweeps.
When we concede common sense all we are left with is silliness, legalisms and teen movie rhetoric.
# 3 above is known as the “prisoner’s dilemma” in connection with parole hearings: if you maintain your innocence, you can’t get out! So someone wrongfully convicted would never get parole unless he capitulates and admits guilt.
Indeed. It astounds me that so many on a ‘right of center’ website simply repeat the pap of the Left. Sad.
Protective custody is no guarantee of inmate safety: witness the murder of de-frocked, and defrocking, priest John Geoghan while in PC. Any prisoner can request PC, correct? And they sometimes do so for the purpose of getting access to an inmate they want to kill.
Slight correction Hypatia. It’s “GOP prisoner’s dilemma.” If you’re a terrorist still unapologetic about plotting the mass slaughter of American citizens, it just doesn’t apply. Of course, nos. 1, 2, 4 and 5 aren’t applicable to plotting leftist mass slaughter either.
Scooter Libby’s life can be ruined by Richard Armitage’s menial sins against a self-aggrandizing media hound (“All right Mr. Penn. I’m ready for my closeup.”) while murderous FALN goons are pardoned by Clinton and Obama and receive command performances from Miranda.
Sorry I can’t spare the outrage for this pardon.
B. Hussein freed a convicted traitor.
And a convicted terrorist murderer.
oh–and, like the cowardly quisling he is, he waited until there wouldn’t be any personal consequences to him.
Really: is there anything more to be said? Words fail me.
Really? Trying to cover up your original statements is kind of silly, seeing that I can merely scroll up and copy them and paste them here:
Would you like it if the officer said how do I know that your not a Canadian. Let me see your birth certificate.
The desk officer calls you and tells you we have your son here we’ll need you to bring his birth certificate to the precinct,
and by the way you better bring yours as well, and your wife’s.
Would you feel insulted if a police officer demanded proof of citizenship?
That’s exactly what you are saying: That cops are pulling people over and demanding a birth certificate because of how they look, and nothing else. My response to you is that this has never happened. There was always a reason the person was pulled over – they committed some crime.
If a person doesn’t have any form of ID or won’t provide it, I would have the officer fired if he didn’t immediately arrest that person. He could be an escaped felon. A person with warrants or multiple warrants. He could be a drug-runner.
Trying to force the police to do anything else besides arrest that person (for whatever Politically Correct reason) is madness, my friend.
@hypatia in reference to your question in comment #50 I’m actually leaving this conversation. Not because of your question, but because of this, see comment #44
I never made the claim that officers were pulling people over to check their papers. I never contended that the traffic stops did not involve traffic violations. I never disparaged police officers, nor do I HateTrump. The tenor of “I demand” is interesting.
The comment is dishonest, and once false accusations are made it’s time move on. I have better things to do than respond to things I never said. So rather than deal with this any longer I plan on enjoying my Sunday without stoking my own anger, or dealing with someone else’s anger management issues.
There are so many potential traffic infractions that cops can essentially stop anyone they want to. F’rinstance, who goes the speed limit? And there’s always “weaving”. S’why pretty blondes get pulled over. So I agree, undoubtedly there’s some underlying offense. And, anyone who gets pulled over has to show ID. If he or she cannot, very often further inquiry will turn up something more serious, as detailed in Comment # 38.
Any cop who doesn’t immediately arrest someone for not having any form of ID should be fired immediately. In my opinion, there are only two types of people who don’t carry ID: Criminals who don’t want to be identified, and Illegals.