Since March 2009, the U.S. Justice Department has been investigating Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office in Phoenix for alleged discrimination and for unconstitutional searches and seizures. Arpaio says the inquiry is focused on his immigration efforts.
Robert Driscoll, a Washington lawyer representing Arpaio, said Justice Department lawyers "have picked the man and the department and are trying to find a violation, rather than find a violation and then seeking to vindicate someone's rights."
"They have been investigating for two years," said Driscoll, who added that most people assume it has something with racial profiling.
But Driscoll said, "If it was going on now, presumably they would have evidence of this now."
In a letter, assistant attorney general Thomas Perez, head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, said the sheriff's office is not turning over material that Perez's lawyers are requesting. Over a year ago, Arpaio's lawyers asked that the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility investigate alleged attorney misconduct regarding the investigation. In his letter to Arpaio's lawyers, Perez said such "unfounded allegations" are not a basis for refusing to cooperate with the Justice Department probe.
In June, the office concluded that no civil rights division attorney at the Justice Department committed professional misconduct or exercised poor judgment in the probe of Arpaio's office.
Perez gave the sheriff's office until Aug. 17 to turn over documents first requested last year in what the department calls an inquiry into claims of discrimination based on national origin.
Arpaio and his legal counsel said a year ago that the sheriff's office would not cooperate with the inquiry.
3 comments:
I think the Justice Dept is intimidated by the good Sheriff !
Stand strong sheriff Joe!
Don't mess with guy's named Joe.
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