Joe Arpaio (R), the infamous Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, is facing more legal trouble. Already facing a class action lawsuit and a U.S. Department of Justice legal complaint, he can again add “federal civil rights and conspiracy lawsuit” to his docket, after a federal appeals court reinstated a suit against him.

A three judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on reinstated a lawsuit filed by Phoenix New Times owners Mike Lacey and Jim Larkin against Arpaio, rejecting his claims of immunity. Lacey and Larkin were arrested after the paper published information about extensive subpoenas they received following a story in which they published Arpaio’s home address.

In July, federal trial began, focused on allegations of racial profiling by Arpaio’s police force. The judge is still considering the class action complaint.

Last December, the U.S. Department of Justice released the findings of a three-year investigation into Arpaio’s practices. In May, the DOJ filed a formal legal compaint against Arpaio for “a pattern or practice of unlawful discriminatory police conduct directed at Latinos in Maricopa County and jail practices that unlawfully discriminate against Latino prisoners with limited English language skills.” The complaint included accusations that Arpaio and his staff forced women to sleep in their own menstrual blood, assaulted pregnant women, ignored rape, and criminalized being a Latino.

When not busy dealing with these legal actions, Arpaio uses taxpayer funds to pursue a “birther” investigation against President Obama. An honorary chairman for Mitt Romney’s 2008 campaign, Arpaio declined Romney’s request for a primary endorsement in the 2012 race.

Arpaio is seeking re-election this November against former Phoenix police sergeant Paul Penzone.

Our guest blogger is Billy Corriher, associate director of research for Legal Progress.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who calls himself “America’s toughest Sheriff,” faced damning evidence of widespread racial profiling in a class action lawsuit that began yesterday in Phoenix. The suit was brought by several Latino persons who allege that Arpaio’s police force discriminated against them during traffic stops. In his opening statement, the plaintiffs’ attorney said, “A fundamental value of our nation is equal protection under laws, regardless of race or ethnicity.”

Arpaio’s attorney argued that “race and ethnicity had nothing to do with their traffic stops.” But the testimony of a criminal justice expert detailed who was targeted by Arpaio’s “immigration sweeps.” The expert said there was a “much higher likelihood” that deputies would run Hispanic names than non-Hispanic. He also testified that if a deputy ran a Hispanic name, the stop would take two minutes longer. Another recent study found that, in certain parts of Maricopa County, Latino drivers are more than nine times as likely to be stopped by Arpaio’s deputies than non-Latino drivers engaged in the same conduct.

One of the plaintiffs is a Mexican tourist who presented deputies with a valid visa and ID but was nevertheless arrested. The driver of the vehicle, a white person, was not cited for speeding (the deputies’ proffered reason for stopping the car).

After this trial concludes, Arpaio is still facing a lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice which, in addition to racial profiling, accuses the sheriff’s office of using racial slurs and failing to investigate hundreds of sex crimes. DOJ is exploring the possibility of criminal charges against Arpaio for targeting his political opponents with frivolous arrests. Rather than fixing these systemic problems in his department, Arpaio is engaged in a wild goose chase for evidence of fraud in President Obama’s birth certificate.

Joe Arpaio, the controversial Arizona Sheriff from Maricopa County, arrested a 6-year-old undocumented immigrant on Friday. The move came the same day President Obama announced a new policy halting deportations for young undocumented immigrants.

The Arizona Republic has the story:

The girl was with 15 other people believed to be in the country illegally who were traveling to the Midwest and northeast United States, said Chris Hegstrom, spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office.

“She’s been turned over to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to try to determine where she’s from. She told us she’s from El Salvador. That’s what she told us,” he said.

The arrest took place Friday night at an undisclosed location in northern Maricopa County…

The sheriff said his deputies arresting child suspected of being an illegal immigrant the same day Obama implemented the policy is a coincidence. But if more illegal children enter the country after hearing about the new policy, Arpaio said it may not be by happenstance.

“Are we going to get more of these situations where illegals feel like now they’re going to be safe? I don’t know,” he said.

Immediately following the President’s announcement Arpaio told a local ABC affiliate that it would not impact his approach toward young undocumented immigrants. “They will still be arrested,” he said.

Arpaio is currently being sued by the Department of Justice for multiple civil rights violations. He also admitted to using taxpayer resources to pursue an investigation into President Obama’s birth certificate, a widely debunked conspiracy theory.

In the year since President Obama released his long-form birth certificate, tax payers are partly-funding Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s investigation into whether or not the president was truly born in the United States.

The Arizona Republic and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser report that two men identifying themselves as Michael Zullo and Brian Mackiewcz arrived at the Hawaii Department of Health on Monday and requested verification of Obama’s birth. They left after a Hawaii deputy attorney provided them information on the legal requirements for obtaining that documentation. Zullo is a volunteer in Arpaio’s inquiry, but Mackiewcz provided a business card identifying him as a public employee who works in the Threats Management Unit of the sheriff’s office.

Arpaio, who has previously claimed that the investigation was being funded through private donations, dismissed concerns about tax dollars funding the conspiracy quest and said “he hopes the agency will be paid back through private donations”:

“It’s one deputy, so what? We have security issues, too, that I can’t got into,” Arpaio said on Friday. “For six months we were not spending any money. When you’re doing investigations sometimes things change, you put more resources into it.”

“He’s not going to make any arrests,” Arpaio said. “I didn’t say we’re going to keep using him. We’re not going to use him constantly. He’s not assigned to it. For this trip I feel it’s important to have a deputy there. He’s just a liaison to give advice if needed. He’s not doing anything. The posse’s been doing the research. I’m not going to say what other trips they’ve been taking but they haven’t had a deputy with them.”

Mackiewcz continues to work on other cases while assisting Arpaio’s investigation, and the sheriff’s office has covered the costs of airfare and hotel rooms for both Mackiewcz and Zullo.

The donations for Arpaio’s probe — close to $40,000 so far — have been regularly encouraged by WorldNetDaily, a fringe right-wing website heavily involved in the promotion of the birther conspiracy theory. Michael Zullo has also co-authored an e-book about birtherism with Jerome Corsi, one of WorldNetDaily’s top theorists.

Arpaio first rose to prominence for carrying out violent, demeaning, implicitly and often explicitly racist practices against Latinos in pursuit of his ultra-hard-line opposition to undocumented immigration. The Hawaii investigation is the most recent dust-up in Arpaio’s recent digression into birther territory, kicked off earlier this year when the Sheriff held a press conference touting roundly-criticized evidence that the certificate was a forgery. In the meantime, Sheriff Joe has become something of a kingmaker in Republican circles, up to and including attempts by GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney to secure his endorsement.

Arpaio is currently under federal investigation.

Earlier today, the Department of Justice filed a formal legal complaint against Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) alleging widespread constitutional violations and lawless mistreatment of Latinos. According to the complaint, Arpaio and his staff engaged in widespread, violent and demeaning mistreatment of Latino residents of Maricopa County, often targeting individuals solely because of their race:

1. Forcing Women To Sleep In Their Own Menstrual Blood: In Arpaio’s jails, “female Latina LEP prisoners have been denied basic sanitary items. In some instances, female Latina LEP prisoners have been forced to remain with sheets or pants soiled from menstruation because of MCSO’s failure to ensure that detention officers provide language assistance in such circumstances.”
2. Assaulting Pregnant Women: “[A]n MCSO officer stopped a Latina woman – a citizen of the United States and five months pregnant at the time – as she pulled into her driveway. After she exited her car, the officer then insisted that she sit on the hood of the car. When she refused, the officer grabbed her arms, pulled them behind her back, and slammed her, stomach first, into the vehicle three times. He then dragged her to the patrol car and shoved her into the backseat. He left her in the patrol car for approximately 30 minutes without air conditioning. The MCSO officer ultimately issued a citation for failure to provide identification.”
3. Stalking Latina Women: “In another instance, during a crime suppression operation, two MCSO officers followed a Latina woman, a citizen of the United States, for a quarter of a mile to her home. The officers did not turn on their emergency lights, but insisted that the woman remain in her car when she attempted to exit the car and enter her home. The officers’ stated reasons for approaching the woman was a non-functioning license plate light. When the woman attempted to enter her home, the officers used force to take her to the ground, kneed her in the back, and handcuffed her. The woman was then taken to an MCSO substation, cited for ‘disorderly conduct,’ and returned home. The disorderly conduct citation was subsequently dismissed.”
4. Criminalizing Being A Latino: “During raids, [Arpaio's Criminal Enforcement Squad] typically seizes all Latinos present, whether they are listed on the warrant or not. For example, in one raid CES had a search warrant for 67 people, yet 109 people were detained. Fifty-nine people were arrested and 50 held for several hours before they were released. Those detained, but not on the warrant, were seized because they were Latino and present at the time of the raid. No legal justification existed for their detention.”
5. Criminalizing Living Next To The Wrong People: “[D]uring a raid of a house suspected of containing human smugglers and their victims . . . officers went to an adjacent house, which was occupied by a Latino family. The officers entered the adjacent house and searched it, without a warrant and without the residents’ knowing consent. Although they found no evidence of criminal activity, after the search was over, the officers zip-tied the residents, a Latino man, a legal permanent resident of the United States, and his 12-year-old Latino son, a citizen of the United States, and required them to sit on the sidewalk for more than one hour, along with approximately 10 persons who had been seized from the target house, before being released.”
6. Ignoring Rape: Because of Arpaio’s obsessive focus on “low-level immigration offenses” his officers failed “to adequately respond to reports of sexual violence, including allegations of rape, sexual assault, and sexual abuse of girls.”
7. Widespread Use Of Racial Slurs: “MCSO personnel responsible for prisoners held in MCSO jails routinely direct racial slurs toward Latino prisoners, including calling Latino prisoners ‘paisas,’ ‘wetbacks,’ ‘Mexican bitches,’ ‘fucking Mexicans,’ and ‘stupid Mexicans.’”
8. Widespread Racial Profiling: “[I]n the southwest portion of the County, the study found that Latino drivers are almost four times more likely to be stopped by MCSO officers than non-Latino drivers engaged in similar conduct. . . . In the northwest portion of the County, the study found that Latino drivers are over seven times more likely to be stopped by MCSO officers than non-Latino drivers engaged in similar conduct. . . . Most strikingly, in the northeast portion of the County, the study found that Latino drivers are nearly nine times more likely to be stopped by MCSO officers than non-Latino drivers engaged in similar conduct.”
9. Random, Unlawful Detention Of Latinos: “MCSO officers stopped a car carrying four Latino men, although the car was not violating any traffic laws. The MCSO officers ordered the men out of the car, zip-tied them, and made them sit on the curb for an hour before releasing all of them. The only reason given for the stop was that the men’s car ‘was a little low,’ which is not a criminal or traffic violation.”
10. Group Punishments For Latinos: “In some instances, when a Latino [Low English Proficiency] prisoner has been unable to understand commands given in English, MCSO detention officers have put an entire area of the jail in lockdown—effectively preventing all the prisoners in that area from accessing a number of privileges because of the Latino LEP prisoner’s inability to understand English, inciting hostility toward the LEP prisoner, and potentially placing MCSO officers and other prisoners in harm’s way.”

Earlier this week, a three-judge disciplinary panel stripped former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas of his license to practice law after Thomas launched unjustified prosecutions against his political enemies. Prior to his fall from grace, Thomas was a top ally to anti-immigrant Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

At a press conference following his disbarment, Thomas was far from contrite:

“Other men, far greater than I, have gone to jail in defense of principles they believed in and so they would not kowtow to a corrupt ruler,” Thomas said at one point. “People like Gandhi, people like Dr. King, people like Solzhenitsyn, people like Thomas More, people who stood for something….and I’m going to stand firm.”

“Gandhi?” wondered one onlooker in amazement.

Watch it:

Sheriff Arpaio Defends Former County Attorney: MyFoxPHOENIX.com

For the record, Gandhi freed a nation from colonial oppression through a campaign of non-violence. Dr. King stared down angry mobs and jailers to bring out Constitution’s promise of equality to all Americans. Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned in a Soviet labor camp for daring to criticize Josef Stalin. Thomas More was executed by decapitation because he refused to abandon his religious beliefs. Andrew Thomas abused his power for personal political gain.

One of these things is not like the others.

[HT: Kyrsten Sinema]