Sheriff Joe Arpaio takes stand in contempt hearing

In 2012, Sheriff Joe Arpaio had a lot to say about immigration law, appearing on innumerable news clips staunchly defending his office’s trademark illegal-immigration enforcement practices.

“I’m going to continue to enforce state laws and federal laws,” he said in one segment, played by plaintiffs before a federal court Wednesday afternoon.

“Why are they going after the sheriff? Because they don’t like me enforcing illegal-immigration law,” he said in another.

But the six-term lawman worked Wednesday to downplay the confidence so evident in his earlier statements. When plaintiffs’ attorneys called him to the witness stand Wednesday afternoon in his civil-contempt hearing, Arpaio had none of his previous bravado. Instead, he said that at the time he was unsure if there was still a way his deputies could still continue immigration enforcement.

The videos' 2012 time frame was no accident. In December 2011, a federal judge barred deputies from detaining anyone solely on the suspicion that they were in the country illegally.

By displaying the videos in court Wednesday, plaintiffs’ attorneys were attempting to demonstrate the sheriff’s state of mind when the office violated U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow's order. The violation is one of the three categories of civil contempt that Arpaio and his office now face.

Arpaio and his attorneys have argued that the violations were unintentional. Plaintiffs’ attorneys say the evidence proves otherwise.

Intentional defiance could elevate the case from civil to criminal contempt.

Arpaio was called to the stand at 4:30 Wednesday afternoon, with only a half-hour left of the court day.

He followed nearly four days of testimony by his current and former subordinates and a former defense attorney, who wrapped up his statements Wednesday morning.

Testimony by the attorney, Tim Casey, was a continuation from Tuesday afternoon, when Snow ordered him to answer plaintiffs’ attorneys’ questions about communications with his former client.

Casey’s testimony Tuesday and Wednesday was especially damning for the sheriff. Casey painted a picture of a client so resistant to orders that it prompted Casey to quit Arpaio’s racial-profiling case.

Notably, when Arpaio was asked Wednesday whether he disagreed with anything Casey said on the stand this week, Arpaio couldn’t think of anything his former attorney said that was incorrect.

Biggest developments

By the end of Wednesday morning, Casey was answering questions directly from Snow, who focused on Casey’s communications with Arpaio during the initial racial-profiling trial in 2012.

Casey testified Tuesday that it was during that trial that he was surprised with testimony indicating that the Sheriff’s Office was not complying with the court’s order.

On Wednesday, Snow asked Casey to elaborate on whose testimony this was. At least one of the concerns, Casey said, was from Arpaio.

Arpaio said during trial that deputies could still use the “LEAR” policy. It authorized deputies to contact U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement when they detained suspected undocumented immigrants who were not believed to have violated any state law.

“All of a sudden at trial we get testimony that is completely different from everything we’ve been told and everything we told him,” Casey said.

Casey said he discussed this with Arpaio shortly after he took the stand. He asked what the basis was for him saying this, after everything they had talked about.

“My memory was the response sort of went, ‘I don’t get into the details, I leave that up to (the human-smuggling unit), I don’t know that level of detail’ — kind of a non-response response,” Casey said.

Earlier on Wednesday, defense attorney John Masterson worked to offset the portrayal of a rogue sheriff, teasing out some of the more flattering details Casey provided about the agency the previous day.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys Tuesday steered their examination of Casey toward suggestions that Arpaio resisted Snow's order for political reasons.

Masterson spent the majority of Wednesday morning questioning Casey on the drafting of training scenarios for deputies in early 2012, which Casey said were meant to help comply with the court’s order.

Casey was sent the scenarios for his approval. He testified that it seemed there was no resistance at that time from anyone at the Sheriff’s Office.

Masterson then homed in on the fact that, as Casey said, the order clearly wasn’t sinking in for Sgt. Brett Palmer, the one responsible for creating the training.

Defense attorneys additionally tried to demonstrate that there were some “nuances” to the order, which could have allowed for interpretation by the Sheriff’s Office.

For instance, as Greg Como, an attorney for former Executive Chief Brian Sands pointed out, if a deputy pulled someone over for an apparent traffic violation and ICE detained the individual within the same time frame as a regular traffic stop, it might not be a violation of the court’s order.

Casey testified that may have been the case, but that he tried to avoid speaking with his clients about exceptions to the rule. The Sheriff’s Office, Casey said, was particularly susceptible to exceptions. Casey warned the office that they would be “borrowing trouble” if they relied on them.

“You have to give them something they try to understand,” Casey told plaintiffs’ attorney Cecillia Wang. “There are nuances and exceptions as lawyers. But I wanted to avoid exceptions. Because of my experience in this case, I thought that was a legitimate concern. Keep it simple.”

Why it’s important

Defense attorneys will likely argue a few points here: that the agency brass, at least in the beginning, seemed eager to follow the judge’s orders.

They may also use Palmer’s misunderstanding to demonstrate that the Sheriff’s Office didn’t willfully defy the preliminary injunction.

Quotable:

“So, they weren’t doing this training just for funzies, they were doing it to comply with Judge Snow’s order,” Masterson asked Casey.

“MCSO was trying to comply with the court order,” Casey said.

What’s next

Arpaio likely returns to the stand Thursday to continue his testimony.