County votes to settle DOJ lawsuit vs. Arpaio
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to settle a lingering lawsuit the U.S. Department of Justice brought against the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in the supervisors' meeting on Wednesday.
The lawsuit filed in 2012 alleged the Sheriff's Office engaged in discriminatory police practices, unfairly targeted Latinos during traffic stops and worksite raids, did not provide adequate services to inmates with limited English proficiency and that the agency retaliated against the sheriff's critics.
The settlement approved Wednesday morning comes with Justice Department oversight and will include additional training and policy changes but does no include monetary damages.
"The Sheriff's Office put us in a situation we should never have been in," Supervisor Steve Gallardo said, explaining the board's decision to approve a settlement.
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The case had been slated to go to trial next month.
The settlement is perhaps most remarkable for how little it requires of the Sheriff's Office, largely because of the reforms the agency has already undertaken in the past few years to comply with other court rulings.
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The sheriff's decision to disband the agency's worksite enforcement unit removed much of the federal government's complaint about discrimination on job-site raids, but if the Sheriff's Office decides to engage in more worksite enforcement operations, deputies will have to meet several requirements, according to the settlement.
The Sheriff's Office will need to establish a set of written policies to ensure that the raids are conducted in compliance with the U.S. Constitution and other laws and the agency will have to provide the federal government with copies of the policies before engaging in the raids, according to the settlement.
The Sheriff's Office will also be required to "establish an official policy prohibiting retaliation against any individual for any individual's lawful expression of ideas in the exercise of the First Amendment right to the freedom of speech," according to the agreement.
The Sheriff's Office will also be required to continue to provide adequate access and resources to non-English-speaking inmates and will have to implement a policy that makes it clear that officers should not rely on other inmates to translate. The agreement also requires the Sheriff's Office to ensure that classes and programs are available to non-English-speaking inmates.
The Justice Department will have access to quarterly reports the Sheriff's Office will be required to compile that will detail how often interpretation services are used and how frequently non-English-speaking inmates file grievances, among other items.
Much of the lawsuit overlapped with another, successful discrimination lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union brought against the Sheriff's Office and a federal judge's ruling in mid-June that granted the Justice Department a summary judgment on many of those allegations laid the groundwork for the settlement.
The ACLU's case centered on traffic stops — with the plaintiffs convincing U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow that the Sheriff's Office singled out Latinos on the pretense of crime suppression. Critics came to see these "saturation patrols" as a means to further Arpaio's immigration enforcement, the backbone of his political platform.
Traffic enforcement is a key claim in the DOJ's case as well, but federal officials expanded their discrimination charges to include home and worksite raids. Separate allegations included discrimination against non-English-speaking inmates in the county jails, and claims of retaliation against Arpaio's critics.
Both Arpaio and DOJ attorneys used the ACLU case as foundation of their competing bids for summary judgment.
Arpaio's camp maintained that the allegations were now moot, and that Snow's imposed remedies were so exhaustive that there was no reasonable likelihood that the court could issue any further relief.
DOJ attorneys had a different interpretation of the ruling, arguing that the suit amounted to a judgment in their favor based on the "undisputed facts" already litigated in court.
A Justice Department lawyer said in June that the ruling resolved many of the claims that formed the basis of the federal government's lawsuit against the Sheriff's Office.
An attorney for the Sheriff's Office said at the time that the federal government still needed to prove the remaining claims that focused on services for non-English-speaking inmates and retaliating against the sheriff's critics.
The mid-June ruling did not touch on whether the summary judgment would warrant further remedies, and the Justice Department's motion for judgment indicated that the discussion would be premature.
"Once the full scope of the Defendants' unconstitutional conduct is determined, the Court can fashion appropriate remedies," government attorneys said in the motion.