Trump pardons Sheriff Arpaio

[kingcat]

If referring to Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. Army soldier convicted of leaking military documents, and Oscar López Rivera, a former leader of FALN, a Puerto Rican paramilitary group responsible for the deaths of six Americans, the president did not pardon them. Their crimes are still a matter of record.

He commuted their sentence. Trump pardoned this guy and wiped his record clean.

[kingcat]

If referring to Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. Army soldier convicted of leaking military documents, and Oscar López Rivera, a former leader of FALN, a Puerto Rican paramilitary group responsible for the deaths of six Americans, the president did not pardon them. Their crimes are still a matter of record.

He commuted their sentence. Trump pardoned this guy and wiped his record clean.

[ukblue]

Go to justice.gov and you can see the pure pos that he pardoned. From the number of people that he pardoned that had cocaine convictions you would think that Obama was business dealings.

[Darrell KSR]

Really good piece here doing a good job of explaining why this pardon was beyond abysmal.


http://www.philly.com/philly/columni...html?mobi=true

Indefensible action. Folks, join the two GOP Senators from Arizona and condemn the action. It is the only right thing here.

[ukblue]

Bullshit Darrell. The president has complete freedom to pardon just as he has complete authority over immigration. Some people may want to beat their chest with a ashen sack and say it ain't so until it goes before the supreme court.

[Darrell KSR]

Bullshit Darrell. The president has complete freedom to pardon just as he has complete authority over immigration. Some people may want to beat their chest with a ashen sack and say it ain't so until it goes before the supreme court.

With this jackass comment, I'm done with the Barber Shop.

I wish some would have the ability to put partisanship aside and understand just how bad what he did was. This isn't about the person he pardoned.

[Doc]

With this jackass comment, I'm done with the Barber Shop.

I wish some would have the ability to put partisanship aside and understand just how bad what he did was. This isn't about the person he pardoned.

I wish there had been equal criticism for many of Obamas pardons. There have in my house. Several that my wife was involved in sending to jail were released courtesy of the last President, without any national criticism. I believe that is the point that was attempting to be made, albeit very poorly.

Personally I believe the charge and conviction were highly politically motivated. Now that doesnt mean it was a wise pardon

[DanISSELisdaman]

A good number of the people Obama pardoned were terrorist and cocaine dealers. The guy Trump pardoned crime amounted to contempt of court. If this concerns people and what Obama did with the people he pardoned I would wonder about people's convictions.

This!!! Which was worse, Trump giving Joe a pardon or Obama giving one to the drug dealer that killed his ex-girlfriend and her 2 young daughters shortly after he got his pardon?

[UKHistory]

While there is merit to look at historical comparisons to evaluate presidents, the primary defense of trump is to look at the dems or bash the media.

It is like UofL fans saying everyone did it.

Let's look at what trump says and does. Judge it on his own. Let's try not. To excuse his inarticulate comments and dismiss his more shameful comments as jokes.

Take him at his words and deeds.

[Doc]

This!!! Which was worse, Trump giving Joe a pardon or Obama giving one to the drug dealer that killed his ex-girlfriend and her 2 young daughters shortly after he got his pardon?

But the flip side is one has nothing to do with the other. I often say what this person did is not relevent to what someone else does. However it does illustrate an inequity in the treatment or how each is treated or viewed. IMO there is no doubt in my mind that many of the individuals pardoned by BHO were far far worse individuals who had committed far worse crimes than anything Sherriff Joe did yet there is wide criticism for Trump's single pardon but little for Obama multiple ones

[UKHistory]

This!!! Which was worse, Trump giving Joe a pardon or Obama giving one to the drug dealer that killed his ex-girlfriend and her 2 young daughters shortly after he got his pardon?

Can you provide a link or the name of the pardoned person?

[Catonahottinroof]

I'm curious about the name too. It's the source of mucho amounts of manufactured news. Google the name James G Winters and see what you get.

This!!! Which was worse, Trump giving Joe a pardon or Obama giving one to the drug dealer that killed his ex-girlfriend and her 2 young daughters shortly after he got his pardon?

[CitizenBBN]

Really good piece here doing a good job of explaining why this pardon was beyond abysmal.


http://www.philly.com/philly/columni...html?mobi=true

Indefensible action. Folks, join the two GOP Senators from Arizona and condemn the action. It is the only right thing here.

I'm sorry Darrell, though I'm not an attorney, I don't see much in that article that makes a legal case that it's a "Constitutional Crisis" as the article headline states.

First, most of the article is a list of wrongs by the sheriff, none of which were part of this case or conviction. If he was running the jail in a way that was inhumane then he should have been charged with that, by the DOJ or whoever else would have standing. He and the city should have faced numerous lawsuits for wrongful death and cruelty. If he was guilty he should go to jail, but none of that was charged in this case.

Honestly I don't know why it wasn't, but it wasn't.

the other most serious claim in the article is that he used his power to protect a political supporter. OK, I agree there, and I don't agree with Presidents doing it, but that's separate from it being a crisis b/c that has been done by PResidents using this mechanism time and again.

I'm not for any of these things, from pardons to communting of sentences except where some clear travesty of justice has occurred, it can be documented and there's simply no other legal recourse to overturning a case. But that's dang rare.

So I can condemn Trump for the pardon, personally I think it was bad politics as well as just part of a system I don't support, but to act like it's vastly out of the bounds of what most every PResident has done is overstating the situation. Most have had the good political sense to wait till the end of their terms to do it, but it's hard for me to see how this is the worst guy that ever got a break from a President using this mechanism.

Most of the complaints about Arpiao are about his other actions as sheriff, and for those if those things happened he should be prosecuted criminally and civilly.

This has the feel of an Al Capone case, where we know he committed other crimes, but we can't get him for the big stuff, so we get him for tax evasion. Maybe that's OK and right, but I do think that's some of what is going on.

FWIW I do think Trump should have waited to even get a sentence in the case and then at the most commuted the sentence rather than pardon the crime. I have no issue with people who want the conviction on the books, but I do have doubts about the timing the DOJ used to bring the charge, etc. I see politics in both sides, but that may not change the fact that he should have been found guilty.

[Catonahottinroof]

The timing of it reeks, I agree.

[kingcat]

In the case of Obamas pardons and commutations the information I found was that it was handled this way. First the President stated concern about the sentencing for non violent drug offenses, and the disproportionate amount of minorities serving mandated 10, 20, etc.. year sentences for such crimes. He then asked for a way to screen the potentials.

So several advocacy groups — including the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Bar Association and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers — formed a consortium called the Clemency Project, to help screen applicants.
Many law firms joined the effort, assigning lawyers to evaluate the clemency applications and to forward deserving cases on to the White House. Violent offenders or those who otherwise did not meet the criteria set out by the Justice Department were set aside. Others were forwarded to government lawyers for review and, potentially, onto the president.

I'm not defending each and every pardon or sentence commute since there are variables with every case unreported, such as rehabilitation programs and such. Only the process.

[DanISSELisdaman]

But the flip side is one has nothing to do with the other. I often say what this person did is not relevent to what someone else does. However it does illustrate an inequity in the treatment or how each is treated or viewed. IMO there is no doubt in my mind that many of the individuals pardoned by BHO were far far worse individuals who had committed far worse crimes than anything Sherriff Joe did yet there is wide criticism for Trump's single pardon but little for Obama multiple ones

Which is exactly my point!

[DanISSELisdaman]

I don't know if this is true or not, but I read somewhere that He requested a jury trial and the judge denied him one. I thought that was a right that we all have.

[badrose]

BTW Amazon Prime has a video called The Joe Show. I'm not sure how it leans but it's 1hr 40 mins long. It's about this topic.

Here's the IMdB link for more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2668234/?ref_=nv_sr_3

[PedroDaGr8]

Arpaio is a monster of the highest order. He is a prime example of what happens when ideology trumps common sense (another being the War On Drugs). Walking proof that for many, as long as ONE of the ends are something they believe in, any and all means attempted are justified and acceptable. For many Conservatives, their hatred of illegal immigrants extends to the point that they view them in essence as human garbage. That because they broke the law by coming here and are still breaking it by being here, they deserve anything that comes to them up to and including death. Being such a divisive topic, view points exist across the spectrum but I have heard this mentioned many many times both implicitly and explicitly.

His office had a running order that any car that looked like it had more than a couple Latino looking individuals was to be stopped. The goal being that they hoped to find an illegal, they claimed that more than one or two Latino looking individuals in a car was suspicious and that they might be smuggling illegals. This was the documented in the lawsuit that ruled against them. He, and his deputies, are then documented misconstruing the court order and insisting that it should be business as usual. During the DoJ investigation into this, Arpaio adamantly said he would not cooperate in any form with the DoJ. This was the first time in DoJ history that a police department did not cooperate with a civil rights investigation. They were forced to sue Arpaio and his office, to compel their cooperation. When the court ordered an independent compliance monitor, he refused to accept it. Across the board, his hatred of Latino's was a matter of established fact. The only way he could have been MORE racist was if he was wearing a white hood.

More importantly, he was not the "law and order" sheriff as the image he actively cultivated claimed. He routinely ignored wide swaths of issues so that he could strictly focus on harassing any and all Latinos in hopes of catching Latino illegal immigrants. The following is an expansion on a collection things that I had researched on him earlier this year when discussing him with someone else.

Hundreds of rape cases were closed, as solved, improperly, a high percentage of them with Latino victims (and many victims children). This is the source of the claim that he ignored child predators. He attempted to use an FBI rule that cases which are unsolvable and without sufficient evidence can be closed. His office did this just to get them off the books, closing rape cases without even a cursory investigation and many times before the DNA evidence even came back. These victims were considered in essence undeserving of police protection. The FBI ruled that more than 400 cases were closed improperly, if not more. It is suspected that as many as 75% of rape and sexual assault cases were cleared improperly. For example, while providing police services for El Mirage, Arizona, Arpaio's office failed to follow through on at least 32 reported child molestations, even though the suspects were known in all but six cases. Many of the victims were children of illegal immigrants. It was viewed as a waste of their time. In a famous legal case,

When gangs were going around and violently robbing illegal immigrants, his office refused to investigate.

In 1998, he and his officers manipulated a local drug addict into attempting to assassinate Arpaio. This was an attempt to bolster his popularity for the upcoming election. His employees provided the addict with food and conviced him that he should attempt to assassinate Arpaio. They even provided him with the pipe bomb making materials. When this was uncovered by a conscientious objector, the judge in the case ruled it was a text book example of entrapment.

His office had a Latina woman, Alma Chacon, give birth while in handcuffs after being arrested for resisting arrest for being profiled as illegal. She asked why she was being put into shackles. She was hit and banged on her car hood in her driveway by sheriff deputies three times despite being nine months pregnant. They then told her that if no one claimed her baby they would demand it to state authority. Turned out she was an American citizen. I believe this resulted in a judgement against Arpaio's office.

He boasted that his tent city was like a concentration camp, which is caught on video. After he gained a bit of commonsense and realized how it sounded, he now lies, denying that he ever says that. Ignoring the video that exists.

Arpaio has said his jails are meant as places for punishment, and that the inhabitants are all criminals. This is despite the fact that MOST members of his tent city were awaiting trial, not yet convicted. This is mostly used as a holding jail, many of these people are not yet guilty of a crime but they are treated as less than human.

Abuse runs rampant in his jails and is done so with instruction and his tacit approval. Guards are told that they should make the lives of inmates as bad a possible while there. I get it, jail isn't supposed to be easy, but it sure as hell should be humane and it SURE as hell shouldn't be torture. TWICE so far, his jails have been ruled to violate the constitutional rights of the inmates as a whole (this excludes the individual claims that have also been brought about).

He bragged that he feeds the inmates for less than he feeds his dogs. There have been several lawsuits around him feeding inmates rotten and inhumane food.

His jailers have a restraint chair, designed for them, which they use to "control" unruly prisoners. I am unsure of the design but clearly it isn't a simple chair, there have been a number of injuries to inmates in this chair and even one death. One parapalegic inmate requested a catheter so he could urinate. The jails response was to lock him in that chair, despite the inmates insistence that it would cause damage to him as a parapalegic. They left him there for 6 hours, which caused so much damage to his lower paralyzed extremities, that he required over four months of treatment.

He denied even routine medical treatment to prisoners in his "concentration camp". One inmate with severe Crohns Disease was denied any and all medicine, despite a doctors prescription. This medicine kept his disease at bay. Without the medicine, his Crohns flared up horribly. He was repeatedly told by guards that he was faking it. His symptoms progressed over a matter of months, with several trips to the prison hospital. On the fourth trip he had major exploratory surgery (cut from pelvis to ribs), because they were convinced he didn't have Crohn's. Even when he was vomiting blood, bleeding profusely from the anus and passing out from a lack of blood, the guards refused to attend to him for over three hours. As a result, he lost his entire colon and now must use a colonoscopy bag. This was covered in a lawsuit which he won.

In a related case:

the plaintiff's attorney cited numerous reports commissioned and paid for by Maricopa county, dating back as far as 1996, detailing a "culture of cruelty" where inmates are routinely denied humane healthcare at Maricopa County jails run by Arpaio. Testifying in this case, Arpaio stated that he could not deny making the statement that even if he had a billion dollars he wouldn’t change the way he runs his jails.

When a woman died at his jail, he and his deputies attempted to destroy incriminating hard drives that the court had been ordered they preserve.

After his office was found guilty of racial profiling, he hired private investigators to try to dig up dirt on the judge presiding over the case, and his wife. The clear goal was to attempt to intimidate the judge, a finding that alone should have had him removed from office. This is third world dictator type stuff.

His intimidation isn't limited to judges. When several reporters who were critical of him, continued to investigate him, he had them arrested on trumped up charges. They later sued and won millions. This is insanity. Anywhere else in the world, the sheriff would lose his job over this.

Truthfully, this is only around 1/3 of the things that I had written down previously. I am just too frustrated and angry to keep going and updating it. This man is scum without measure, he hides (like many powerful criminals) behind a veneer of "you can't prove that I ordered this explicitly myself". He is a criminal and a tin-pot dictator. Much like the CEO who orders his subordinates to do things, without documentation, he hides behind this veneer. If you support fighting illegal immigration, I get it. You want somebody to take up your cause. Arpaio should NOT be that person because when you support him you are supporting all of his actions. You are supporting a man with a well documented racist bent, a man who views illegal immigrants as less than human, a man who encourages his employees to commit repeated civil and human rights abuses, a man who attempts to actively suppress dissent. You are supporting and excusing the actions of a monster, all because he supports fighting illegal immigration.

Full disclosure, I honestly believe we need to enforce illegal immigration policies more strongly, but not without losing our humanity. I also am supportive of dramatically increasing the amount of legal immigration.This is a topic I could expand on heavily but now is not the time or place.

I don't know if this is true or not, but I read somewhere that He requested a jury trial and the judge denied him one. I thought that was a right that we all have.

There is no constitutional right to a jury trial for things like criminal contempt charges. There is in general rule that the 6th ammendment"petty" offenses, ones which have a jail time less than 6 months. That these kinds of offenses do not have a constitutional right to trial by jury. This is due to the recognition that trying any and every little crime by jury would be impossibly burdensome on the court system. This is an accepted legal fact, with significant Supreme Court precedent, and a fact that even Arapaio agreed to. In attempting to convert it to a trial by jury, he attempted to claim exception to this general rule because:

Many of the actions of the referring judge will become an issue in the case, calling into question the objectives and motives of Judge Snow. A public official’s actions and motives should and must be decided by an impartial jury of the elected official’s peers.

He is in essence arguing that the Judge was prejudiced against him and significantly overstepped their bounds, resulting in him having to commit contempt. The court denied their claim:

The Court finds that this case is appropriate for a bench trial. This case focuses on the application of facts to the law to determine if Defendant intentionally violated a court order.

Basically saying, since there is no right to a jury trial and no compelling reason to grant a jury trial (finding no merit to his argument of judicial impropriety), that a bench trial is the most appropriate action in this case.

Of course Fox News spun this as he was illegally denied his right to a trial by jury. Ignoring the fact that in this case, that right does not exist. Never let the truth stand in the way of a good narrative though.

[kingcat]

Yeah Pedro..but couldn't he still be a pretty good guy?

[UKHistory]

Yeah Pedro, but what about other atrocities committed by other people? As long as someone else is doing something bad (not necessarily as bad) that I can write about and use as a strawman argument to change the subject, this guy should be ignored. There are already countless examples of bad people who have gone unpunished (in my view) that must be dealt with first by the biased media before we even discuss the well intended actions of a straight shooter who doesn't even use butter "liberally" on his hotcakes.

[kingcat]

I honestly agree with Darrell that this about WAY more than the quality of the individual. I don't know these people personally. Not any of them. I dont know what rehabilitation programs, conversion of conviction, mitigating factors and/or aggravating factors apply. I know people who committed crimes that were way outside their normal character. Christian people who were influenced by drugs, personal pain, and emotional stress, and I believe that "mercy" applies under law and without first hand knowledge we had best be careful how we side.

That said, this pardon is another animal imho. The timing was intentional and a spit in your face action directed at the United states legal system and non whites.
I'm only certain of that much.

[CitizenBBN]

Out of curiosity I'm going to see if we can find any common ground, or at least understanding on this.

To do so I'm going to ask both sides some questions. Let's see if we can move past the partisan sides and find out what's going on here.

Anyone can answer any question, but I do have some for each side in this that may highlight the issues.

First, for those who have issue with Arpaio and/or this decision:

1) Do you think this conviction is in part some kind of justice for the other acts he has committed as laid out by Pedro and others in this thread?

2) If so, do you think the 6 months he was facing is sufficient or is it more that he was at least convicted of something, anything, to reflect his mis-deeds?

3) If the judge had come back and said he was guilty but there would be no jail time, would that be minimally acceptable in any way?

[CitizenBBN]

Now for those who hgenerally are favorable on Sheriff Joe and/or the pardon:

1) If Arpaio did the things as described so well by Pedro, would you support him being prosecuted for any/all of those activities?

2) Would you support stopping cars of Latino looking people without other cause just to see if they are illegals?

3) If Arpaio had not been pardoned, and served 6 months or whatever it would be for his crime, would you feel that was unjust in a significant way?

[Catonahottinroof]

His misdeeds were contempt of court according to the pardon. We're he prosecuted for what Pedro listed, he'd be toast in any venue as he's not bigger than the court system of his own jurisdiction. That's why I read that post as less than accurate because he would have been prosecuted criminally for those actions.

[PedroDaGr8]

Out of curiosity I'm going to see if we can find any common ground, or at least understanding on this.

To do so I'm going to ask both sides some questions. Let's see if we can move past the partisan sides and find out what's going on here.

Anyone can answer any question, but I do have some for each side in this that may highlight the issues.

First, for those who have issue with Arpaio and/or this decision:

1) Do you think this conviction is in part some kind of justice for the other acts he has committed as laid out by Pedro and others in this thread?

2) If so, do you think the 6 months he was facing is sufficient or is it more that he was at least convicted of something, anything, to reflect his mis-deeds?

3) If the judge had come back and said he was guilty but there would be no jail time, would that be minimally acceptable in any way?

1. Depends on what you mean by justice. Do you mean it is suitable and fair justice for all of the other stuff he did? No. Is it justice in his criminal contempt case, yes. He committed criminal contempt by directly rejecting, ignoring, and trying to subvert a judges orders. He was actively lying about facts of law and using that to try to continue his policies. His punishment would have been small compared to the scale of crimes he and his organization committed.

2. Not at all sufficient for everything he did. Sufficient for criminal contempt as the law is written. There is a small sliver of justice in at least he was convicted of something, but considering it is well deserved for a crime already is not much.

3. Truthfully, as discussed before, even the maximum penalty would not have been enough. The conviction though was better than nothing, it was a bit like trying Capone for tax evasion (just the penalties were less). He was able to inculcate enough plausible deniability to ensure that he was seldom directly charged for the crimes he and his organization committed. Organizations are like that, it is easy to spread just enough of the blame around to make it difficult, if not near impossible to charge any one person. More importantly, it would mean that he would have to follow the orders from the judge in the outcome of his civil rights case. Orders which required him to implement systems to prevent this from happening at an organizational level and have it independently verified. As it is now, because of the pardon, he literally does not have to do anything no matter WHAT the judge said/says on that case. The judge can lay down ANY penalty he wants and now Arpaio doesn't have to oblige. This means that the behavior can in essence continue. Previously, if he kept ignoring the judge, then he could be repeatedly found in contempt until he changed. Now, he can do as he wishes. Most importantly, since he is basically immune from punishment in this case they would have to build a new case from scratch to institute the changes and punishments requested, as I believe all old evidence would fall under the domain of this previous case. For certain, based on his behavior, he will not stop violating peoples civil rights now. Building a new case of this scale from scratch would require years of additional abuses to build the case. That is a large number of people (of which many are US Citizens) suffering at his hands, just so they have enough evidence to build this new case and affect the change

His misdeeds were contempt of court according to the pardon. We're he prosecuted for what Pedro listed, he'd be toast in any venue as he's not bigger than the court system of his own jurisdiction. That's why I read that post as less than accurate because he would have been prosecuted criminally for those actions.

Every single thing that I listed has been well documented and it is ONLY the tip of the iceberg, this man is a horrible horrible person. I can dig up multiple sources for pretty much everything I stated (there is enough documented, that I ignore anything that is hearsay that can't be documented). For many of the crimes he committed, short of an outright admission or a smoking gun document, building that case against him as an individual would be very very very difficult. It is quite easy to hide behind a veneer of plausible deniability, many many many CEOs and crime bosses have gotten away with this MO, time and again. By giving undocumented approval to actions, tacit approval, not rebuking organizational member behavior, etc. you can spread the blame around enough that it is difficult to criminally charge any one person all while controlling the outcome and actions of the organization. More importantly, he and his organization, have been found guilty repeatedly in civil court, where individual plausible deniability is not a shield. Very few of these facts are in dispute and the pattern is clear, just getting the evidence to the level that he can't escape with plausible deniability is very difficult when crimes are committed within an organization, especially when the organization is non-compliant and not looking to improve, as his office was.


As for those that think this pardon was somehow unconstitutional, it was not. The pardon was explicitly on the criminal contempt charges, not for the constitutional rights violations he and his organization committed. Every single case I have seen built around unconstitutionality has brought in those crimes. This pardon in essence makes him impossible to punish for these violations or affect change in the organization, but does not excuse the violations themselves. As such, criminal contempt is an offense fully pardonable by the president and I don't think there is any debate on that. If he had pardoned Arpaio or his office for the civil rights violations, that's where things would get more interesting but it did not happen.

Edit: I just read an interesting argument about constitutionality. Basically it says that in order for courts to function as the constitutional check and balance enforcement, as the founders intended, they must retain the ability to effect change for constitutional violations. In other words, if the president can pardon anyone who defies court orders to enforce constitutional protections, then those constitutional protections are rendered meaningless. It in essence weighs two different constitutional powers against each other. It is an interesting legal argument, but I'm not sure how much weight it holds.

[kingcat]

I don't find it uncommon at all for certain individuals possessing more than the average political clout to escape serious charges and eventually face a lesser charge (such as contempt of court) to reign him in. It happens

So probably, to #1. There are always more goings on than are made public in such a case. Id have to hear exactly what was discussed among the lawyers to answer correctly. As does anyone else here to know why he wasn't prosecuted before hand.
I do know it is common for law officers (with clout) to escape deserved penalties. Some may serve some pretend time in a southern retirement facility. Like the Sheriff in Shively, I believe it was, did years ago. Those from the area knew he had his hands dirtier than the record shows.

To be clear, I am for the liberty of every American citizen...with zero preference and will stand for each of them having equal rights to any other citizen..be it an officer of the law, a Senator, or the President of the United States.. And for them to be treated with no less respect from each other while being protected by our inalienable rights. Profiling is a thinly defined thing and it seems we have allowed the scope of it to broaden to a point that infringes on the liberty of citizens. The interment camps and such are embarrassing to me.

But I digress.
To me, there is one question to be asked and this thread was intended to address that I believe.
Why did President Trump pardon him and was it done in an amicable, innocent, non partisan, and ethical way?
I'm sure there is common ground otherwise. I think we would all admit that we dont have all the facts about what led to this individual case.

[PedroDaGr8]

Through more reading, it became clear many (including to some degree me) misunderstand how a pardon functions. It does not wipe away the conviction, it just prevents the courts from enforcing punishment on it. It is this enforcement, meaning ability to enact change, which has been removed by the pardon. As I said in a previous post, without this ability to punish, the courts have limited means to enforce compliance with constitutional rights.

Meanwhile, Arpaio has requested the courts wipe the conviction too. It is unclear if this will happen, but is not within the grounds of a pardon nor can it be a requirement of a pardon. This is important, because acceptance of a pardon can be considered an admission of guilt according to the 1915 Supreme Court case of Burdick v. United States. Evidence that can be possibly used in further civil proceedings. In essence he would be admitting that he continued to violate people's civil rights against a court order. This could be used in other cases. That being said, it's not 100% cut and dried. As the are degrees of guilty and what he was found guilty of and how the pardon is worded all play a role.

[CitizenBBN]

Pedro, I don't deny or agree with the allegations, but it does beg the obvious question why none of that was prosecuted. Surely the full power of the DOJ with such a long list of wrongs can get him on more than the profiling charge. Not to mention state and civil options.

He has been national news for decades, and I've seen entire shows on his tent jail and such. It's not like he was hiding, and it's in a big city.

Now it's possible his city or his office was as corrupt as Chicago etc., but Chicago regularly still does have successful prosecutions. Where were his?

Now I'm not defending him, I have no dog in this fight honestly b/c I haven't done the research. But we're talking about decades of serious, serious charges, and it's not like he's only monitored by the NCAA.

I do appreciate you guys answering the questions. I'm just curious if we're really all that far apart or not on this, but I need to know what's really at the heart of the issue.

My guess is those who really have issue with the pardon see it in a broader scope of his list of wrongs, and that's OK, but it's about more than just this contempt charge. Though they can still have issue with just the pardon, I think it's the fact that Sheriff Joe will walk for all of these things. I get that being a big problem.

[CitizenBBN]

Through more reading, it became clear many (including to some degree me) misunderstand how a pardon functions. It does not wipe away the conviction, it just prevents the courts from enforcing punishment on it. It is this enforcement, meaning ability to enact change, which has been removed by the pardon. As I said in a previous post, without this ability to punish, the courts have limited means to enforce compliance with constitutional rights.

Meanwhile, Arpaio has requested the courts wipe the conviction too. It is unclear if this will happen, but is not within the grounds of a pardon nor can it be a requirement of a pardon. This is important, because acceptance of a pardon can be considered an admission of guilt according to the 1915 Supreme Court case of Burdick v. United States. Evidence that can be possibly used in further civil proceedings. In essence he would be admitting that he continued to violate people's civil rights against a court order. This could be used in other cases. That being said, it's not 100% cut and dried. As the are degrees of guilty and what he was found guilty of and how the pardon is worded all play a role.

That last part could get very interesting.

And IMO that seems a perfectly valid option for the situation. If these things happened those people do have possible cases and he and the city should have to deal with them.