If Trump pardons Arpaio, he'll reward defiance of the courts, and that's wrong
President Trump hinted Tuesday night that he planned to pardon former Arizona Sheriff Joseph Arpaio for his federal contempt of court conviction, telling a crowd in Phoenix: “I’ll make a prediction: I think he’s going to be just fine. But I won’t do it tonight because I don’t want to cause any controversy. … But Sheriff Joe can feel good.”
If Trump can be believed — never a sure thing — and he makes good on that semi-veiled promise, he won’t be delivering a gift of mercy to a deserving and repentant offender. He’ll be rewarding a political friend and supporter who shares his abhorrence of illegal immigration and his affection for draconian enforcement strategies. By blessing a top local law enforcement officer’s defiance of a federal judge, Trump would again exhibit his own contempt for the courts.
Arpaio, 85, made himself a hero of the anti-immigrant right by cracking down on people living illegally in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix. But his practices smelled of 1930s Alabama. He reintroduced the chain gang and forced inmates to live in a tent city under the hot desert sun, where critics complained deputies routinely used racial epithets in dealing with minorities, particularly Latinos, and some inmates died at deputies’ hands. He was sued a decade ago over complaints that his department routinely violated the rights of Latinos — including many who were citizens of the U.S. or living in the country perfectly legally — by stopping them based on racial profiling. Those who were suspected of living here without permission were detained, even though being in the country illegally is not a state crime. A federal judge ordered Arpaio to put a stop to the practice, but he did not.
The message Trump really sends here is that the president of the United States doesn’t think court orders need to be respected.
The Maricopa department’s atrocious treatment of those in custody — with or without a legal right to live here — contributed to Arpaio’s failure to win a seventh term as sheriff last November. Some people who take a hard line against illegal immigration might have appreciated Arpaio’s actions, but civil libertarians — and, really, anyone with a heart — were appalled, and rightly so.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-trump-arpiao-pardon-20170822-story.html
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