Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Abuses of Power Have Cost Arizona Taxpayers Over $38 Million
by Nick Goroff
Racial
profiling, wrongful death, political witch hunts. These are among the
more common themes to Maricopa County, Arizona's infamous sheriff Joe
Arpaio's dodgy legacy. Though his 'get tough' antics and often barbaric
approaches to criminal justice, Arpaio has made himself and his
department the target of scorn and scrutiny by civil rights leaders and
social justice advocates nationwide.
However
in addition to the laundry list of ethical and legal problems that
"America's Sheriff" has either created or been at the center of, newly
released court documents show that throughout his tenure, Sheriff Arpaio
has cost Arizona taxpayers $38 million in legal fees as a result.
The
costs stem from the long series of legal battles, most of which focused
on Arpaio's more aggressive and often questionable policing efforts. As
a result of a ruling against his department over their racially based
immigration checks, Arizona taxpayers were put on the hook for roughly $22 million to ensure appropriate supervision and compliance with court orders by Arpaio and his deputies.
In addition to these costly well publicized issues of racial profiling
carried out under the auspices of immigration enforcement, Arpaio and
his cronies have also been sued over what plaintiffs - both county
officials and fellow law enforcement - claim were politically motivated
police investigations on trumped-up or imaginary charges, costing
taxpayers an additional $4.2 million.
Adding
to this, two separate wrongful death suits related to his treatment of
suspects and prisoners in his custody who died allegedly, as a result of
either neglect or abuse at the hands of Maricopa County Sheriffs, which
cost a combined $11.5 million in settlements, the total annual cost to
Arizona taxpayers during Sheriff Joe's 21 years in office, comes to
roughly $1.8 million a year in legal settlement costs alone.
A
steep price in a time of shrinking budgets and deficit hysteria and one
made even steeper when the human cost of such a brutal and inhumane
approach to law and order is added in. Though praised as a true American
and patriot by nationalist, 'get tough' conservatives, Arpaio's
treatment of county prisoners and utter contempt for civil rights has
drawn more comparisons to Soviet era gulags than the range riding cowboy
marshals that many of his fans attempt to portray him as.
This past week, Arpaio grabbed headlines
again when he announced that he would be putting inmates on a twice
daily bread and water diet, as punishment for the desecration of
American flags he installed in their cells.
Though
many of Arpaio's often militant supporters will call the additional
costs the result of frivolous lawsuits, they are consistently at a loss
to defend the gross and overreaching assumed authority that the
controversial lawman contends to posses. Presently Arpaio is seeking
legal recourse to pass the costs in defending his practices on to the
federal government, apparently believing that all of America should pay
for his actions and legal defense.
While
these and numerous other legal matters surrounding his department
continue working their way through the courts, the one thing that is for
certain is that presently at $38 million, the true, final financial
cost for Sheriff Joe's abuse of power still has yet to be realized.
(h/t: ABCNews)
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