If a judge-appointed monitor is good enough to make the New York City Police Department reform its "stop and frisk" policy, then a monitor should do the trick for Maricopa County's serial racist Sheriff Joe Arpaio in the ACLU's big civil rights case Melendres v. Arpaio.
In May, federal Judge G. Murray Snow enjoined Arpaio's deputy dawgs from racial profiling Latinos. He later ordered that both parties in Melendres come up with a proposed consent decree, detailing how the court's order will be implemented.
Today was the deadline for that proposal, so both the sheriff's mouthpiece Tim Casey and the ACLU have jointly filed a status report on their negotiations, and a 78-page proposed order, with the language opposed by the MCSO in red.
And there's a lot of red, because the MCSO opposes outright nine out of the 12 proposals from the plaintiffs, and offers counter-proposals on the rest.
See Also: Joe Arpaio's White Crosses: Where Are the Ones for Joe's Victims?
"Defendants oppose the appointment of a monitor," writes Casey at one point. "If the Court were to appoint a monitor, the role and authority of such monitor must be reconciled so that the monitor's role does not supplant the elected Sheriff's authority under the Arizona Constitution and Arizona statute.
"Therefore, if the Court were to appoint a monitor, the role and authority of such monitor should be based on the terms proposed by the Defendants."
Read the parties' joint report to Judge Snow regarding consent decree negotiations.
Read the 78-page proposed consent order, with objections from Joe's lawyer in red.
In other words, if Arpaio's going to have a babysitter, then he wants to be able to tell him or her what to do. Casey is full of it here, as usual. Monitors are common practice in such civil rights cases involving cops.
As far as the "sheriff's authority" goes, he is not a king and Maricopa County is subject to the U.S. Constitution.
And who interprets the U.S. Constitution? Federal judges. Duh.
The MCSO is also against certain limits on the questioning of passengers in vehicles, and opposes documenting the race, ethnicity and gender of the driver and any passengers during traffic stops.
Other points of contention include the ACLU's proposals for a computerized database aimed at catching "problematic behavior" by deputies, the close supervision of deputies by supervisors, and the creation of a community advisory board and more outreach to Latinos.
After all, why would the MCSO want to improve its relations with Latinos when its spent the last five or six years alienating them?
