Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio May Face Civil and Criminal Charges

The U.S District Court Judge Murray came a step closer to carry out contempt charges against Joe Arpaio, a lawman in Arizona. The judge held the charges against the subject this Thursday because he failed to follow the court mandate in the case of racial-profiling back in 2007.

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Arpaio is an 82 year old Maricopa County sheriff who declares himself to be the toughest sheriff in America. He is accused of holding the Latino drivers for extended periods of time at traffic stops, last year. The case has transformed into a racial-profiling case.

The judge ordered to put a stop to such acts. To fulfill the purpose, the U.S District Court Judge Murray assigned a court monitor to supervise and manage the operations of the sheriff’s office.

Arpaio, Maricopa County and the Latino plaintiffs were ordered by Murray to file the court papers latest by the 8th of January. He declared that the issue be tried on the civil and criminal charges.

In the court hearing in downtown Phoenix, Snow cited some occurrences and said that he has some apprehensions regarding the deputies who were not told about the court’s mandate and order, where the material was not returned to the lawyers of the Latino drivers.

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He further added that there are some serious violations of law on many fronts and a number of issues are of great concern.

Snow issued his ruling in response to a lawsuit filed by the Latino plaintiffs in May 2013. The Latino drivers argued for their constitutional rights which they believed were violated because they were signaled out by the deputies for traffic stops.

The hearing was attended by Apraio along with his criminal defense attorney, Melvin McDonald on Thursday. He refused the racial profiling charges and made an appeal for the ruling of the last year made by Snow.