Judge: Sheriff Arpaio not forthcoming on stand in civil-contempt case

The most withering criticism of Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Friday came not from the plaintiffs in the racial-profiling lawsuit against him, nor from a Department of Justice attorney, who said Arpaio’s office fostered a “culture of lawlessness.”

It was instead delivered by U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow, the man who has presided over 20 days of testimony in Arpaio’s civil-contempt hearings, as well as its underlying racial-profiling suit.

Snow largely took a backseat role in monitoring the contempt hearings. Though he was consistently engaged and attentive, Snow allowed the attorneys to steer the direction of the proceedings, rarely betraying any opinion of his own.

That changed Friday. Throughout the day, and often while standing up, Snow unloaded his various “concerns” involving the operations and ethics of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office.

In perhaps the most dramatic moment of the day, Snow grilled Arpaio’s defense attorney on why he shouldn’t believe the county’s longest-serving sheriff lied while under oath.

Rehashing testimony

It was the day when attorneys were to rehash testimony that has stretched over seven months, condensing what they believed were the key moments into less than three hours.

Plaintiffs went first.

Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and Covington & Burling divvied their time into five broad categories: a controversial investigation involving a confidential informant, the agency’s internal investigations, and the three federal court orders Arpaio and his aides violated.

Arpaio and four of his current and former aides are accused of continuing to enforce illegal-immigration laws after Snow barred the practice; of failing to produce video evidence prior to the core discrimination trial, and of failing to quietly collect video evidence after Snow ordered them to do so.

The violations stemmed from a long-running racial-profiling case, where Snow ultimately ruled that Arpaio’s deputies had violated the constitutional rights of Latinos during traffic stops.

Arpaio and Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan have both acknowledged the failures, and that they were in civil contempt, but deny the violations were willful. Intentional flouting of a court’s order could result in more severe remedies for the Sheriff's Office or a finding of criminal contempt.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys did not take a stance on whether the evidence warrants a criminal-contempt referral, but they repeatedly stressed that they believed the violations were intentional.

Stanley Young, an attorney from Covington & Burling, highlighted the 18 months that the Sheriff’s Office went without following Snow’s order to halt immigration-enforcement practices.

Young contended that the violations were a matter of politics rather than confusion.

“They wanted to be able to tell the public that he was continuing to enforce immigration laws,” Young said.

Young went on to condemn Arpaio’s so-called “Seattle Investigation,” where the office employed a confidential informant named Dennis Montgomery.

Montgomery told sheriff’s investigators he could prove the CIA had harvested the banking information of Maricopa County residents. But his work product strayed from this mission, and Montgomery frequently produced documents that indicated a collusion between Snow and the federal government.

“I think it’s pretty clear what the sheriff was going after,” Young said Friday. “What he was seeking was information about your honor.”

Though the “Seattle Investigation” is not one of the three allegations of contempt, plaintiffs say the operation speaks to Arpaio’s state of mind. The sheriff, they say, would rather spend his time concocting a conspiracy against a federal judge than following his orders.

Paul Killebrew, an attorney for the Department of Justice, recommended the judge impose sweeping reforms over the Sheriff’s Office’s internal affairs.

“I just want to say that … we’ve never seen facts like these,” Killebrew said. “This is an extreme case.”

He pointed to other police agencies across the country that have, for instance, replaced their own internal-affairs unit with a citizen-run bureau.

The DOJ intervened in the case’s remedies after settling their own racial-profiling suit against the Sheriff’s Office this summer.

Snow remained mostly silent throughout the plaintiffs’ and DOJ’s arguments, only sporadically asking for clarification.

Judge questions defense attorney

He reserved most of his more stringent questioning for defense attorney John Masterson.

Masterson set out to stress what he and his clients have reiterated for weeks: The Sheriff’s Office’s violations were a matter of misunderstandings and were completely unintentional.

He said their failures to halt immigration enforcement were, in part, a result of not understanding their former attorney's explanation of the court's order.

He stressed Arpaio and Sheridan's willingness to accept responsibility for their department by acknowledging civil contempt.

Masterson had just called the plaintiffs’ focus on Montgomery a “sideshow” when Snow intervened.

Snow said there was marginal evidence that Arpaio had chased a conspiracy involving himself and the DOJ.

“But truthfully, I’m far less concerned about that than Sheriff Arpaio’s willingness to tell the truth while he’s on the stand,” Snow said.

Snow referenced the sheriff’s April testimony, in which Snow asked Arpaio whether he was aware of anyone investigating Snow or his activities.

The sheriff at the time said no but altered his story during this fall’s testimony. According to Arpaio, the office was interested in Snow only because he was an alleged victim of the CIA’s bank-hacking scandal.

Masterson quibbled with Snow’s definition of “investigation” and maintained that the sheriff was honest about the question at hand.

Snow was unconvinced.

“His forthcomingness,” Snow said, “is what really gives me major concern about what order I have to enter.”

In the same vein, Snow challenged Masterson on his clients' failures to turn over required evidence this past summer, including nearly 1,500 ID cards and 50 hard drives.

Snow at another point called certain internal investigations a “joke.” It was an agreement with the plaintiffs’ assertion that internal policing policies were less about justice than excusing bad deputy behavior.

Snow is not expected to issue his findings for at least two weeks.