Thursday, April 19, 2012

Indictment Coming for Sheriff Joe?

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist


There has been a lot of news coming out of Arizona over the past few days, and for a change most of it is good.  First, it looks as though President Obama's campaign team has about decided to put Arizona in play this year and not just automatically cede it to the knuckle-draggers and sandbillies who righteously believe that the majority of Arizonans are as dumb as they are.  Current polling shows the President and Mr. Romney in a dead heat in the Scorpion State.

The good guys in Arizona won a significant victory earlier this month when a three-member disciplinary panel of the Arizona State Supreme Court voted to disbar former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and his top aide, Lisa Aubuchon, over their involvement in some of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's political payback shenanigans.  The pair lost their licenses to practice law in Arizona for a minimum of five years.  (Thomas, a close ally of Sheriff Arpaio, came extremely close to being elected State Attorney General in 2010.)

And the third bit of good news out of Arizona involves the fraudulent and flatulent sheriff of Maricopa County himself - Joe Arpaio.   The old windbag calls himself  "America's Toughest Sheriff" and is famous for shaming inmates, well-televised "round-ups" of "illegals" which usually do little more than tie up traffic for an afternoon, and other stunts - often with celebrities in tow.  For over the past three years Sheriff Joe has been the subject of an on-going federal investigation regarding a host of allegations including the mistreatment of prisoners and rampant racial profiling.

Last December the U.S. Department of Justice issued a report of its investigation that found serious civil rights violations in the way Arpaio and his deputies ran the sheriff's office.  One of the temporary remedies was to place a federal monitor in Sheriff Arpaio's office to insure that the civil rights of inmates and the general public were  not being violated.  Old Joe was effectively slapped down.

But this week the sheriff went on the offensive with the Feds and announced that he would not allow any monitor into his office.   Now the ball is in the Fed's court, and it seems likely that they may be about to declare that they have had enough of his halfwit theatrics and haul the ancient lawman into court.  Michael Manning, a Phoenix attorney who requested a federal civil rights investigation of Arpaio in 2008, stated that he believes a federal indictment of the sheriff could come within the next thirty days.

Be still my heart!

The Sheriff of Maricopa County is no more above the law than any of the rest of us.  It's high time that he was made to account for his rampant disregard of civil rights and the process of law - and if that results in him being issued pink underwear and made to sleep on a cot in Tent City, so much the better!

Joe, be sure to try the green bologna sandwiches.  I hear they are an amazing value at just seventeen cents apiece!

1 comment:

Don said...

It's more than time that this racist thug who's somehow turned humiliation into a matter of public policy be silenced.
Perhaps the day is closer than we think.