See also: ACLU Seeks New Injunction on "Papers Please" Portion of SB 1070 See also: SB 1070, SCOTUS, Friendly House, and a Ray of Hope See also: Russell Pearce's Falsehoods, Inaccuracies and Inventions on Channel 12's Sunday Square-Off See also: Russell Pearce Scores Another Win Against Hispanics, Most Local Activists Are No-Shows, Only Daniel Patterson Shines Coming full circle from two years ago when she enjoined the most troubling parts of Senate Bill 1070, U.S. District Court Judge Susan R. Bolton has scheduled oral arguments for Tuesday, August 21, on a motion from the plaintiffs in Valle del Sol v. Whiting, asking that she maintain an injunction on section 2(b), the so-called "papers please" portion of the law.
Bolton's original injunction issued July 28, 2010, remains in effect, for now. At that time, she ruled that 2(b), along with three other sections were likely preempted by federal immigration law.
Her injunction in United States v. Arizona was appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed that three sections of 1070 were preempted.
But the high court let 2(b) survive, finding that Bolton should not have issued an injunction on the narrow grounds of preemption.
The Supremes left open the possibility that 2(b) might be challenged on other grounds, even as it sent the case back to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which in turn agreed with lifting the stay and passed the buck back to Bolton.
Meanwhile, the ACLU, MALDEF, the National Immigration Law Center, and other plaintiffs in Valle del Sol, which like U.S. v. Arizona contends that 1070 is unconstitutional, are seeking to have Bolton maintain an injunction on 2(b), on the grounds that it violates both the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures, and the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, which bars racial profiling.
Valle del Sol plaintiffs also are looking to have a harboring provision of 1070 enjoined, and it's worth noting that in February Bolton blocked the enforcement of two 1070 provisions dealing with day laborers.
But since 2(b) requires cops to check immigration status on any lawful stop if there is "reasonable suspicion" to believe the detainee is in the country illegally, the rumble to watch will once more be at the Sandra Day O'Connor U.S. Courthouse in downtown Phoenix come Tuesday at 10 a.m.
I've already written about the plaintiffs motion to enjoin. And the plaintiffs' exhibits, particularly a slew of racist e-mails and statements made by 1070's Big Daddy, disgraced, recalled state Senate President Russell Pearce, have opened the local media's eyes to the fact that 1070 -- hang onto your pajamas -- is a racist law created with a bigoted intent.
As that great philosopher Gomer Pyle might have exclaimed, "Shazam!"
But the media is dense, and, to judge by the recent response of the defendants' attorneys in Valle del Sol, so are high-priced legal beagles ensconced in big, money-grubbing law firms.
As was reported just before the Supremes ruled on June 25, Governor Jan Brewer's law dogs at Snell & Wilmer by then had woofed up some $2.3 million in fees defending 1070, fortunately from donated funds, so far.
I'm not impressed with what these millions have purchased, particularly when it comes to the firm's latest reply in Valle del Sol.
Not that I'm complaining. First off, it's not my dough. And secondly, I want Brewer to continue her losing streak when it comes to Arizona's ethnic cleansing law.
For instance, take S & W's contention that the Supreme Court has "foreclosed" pre-enforcement challenges on preemption or Fourth Amendment grounds.
In full spin mode, S & W twists this quote from the Supreme Court's 1070 decision:
"This opinion does not foreclose other preemption and constitutional challenges to the law asinterpreted and applied after it goes into effect."
Does this statement say that the Supreme Court has "foreclosed" pre-enforcement challenges, as S & W suggests in its filing? Um, no. The Supremes were not addressing Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment claims.
Also, the defendants claim there's "no credible evidence that the implementation of section 2(b) will have a discriminatory effect."
Statements from law enforcement officials showing that 1070 will be used to violate the Fourth Amendment rights of some Latinos are shrugged off or rationalized by Brewer's counsel.
Take the comments of redneck Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever on Sean Hannity's Fox News show that, "If ICE or border patrol won't come get [the suspected illegal aliens], we take them to them, dump them on their doorstep and say, you figure it out."
After extensive scrubbing, Dever's clear intent to violate individuals' Fourth Amendment rights, becomes the following, in S & W-speak:
"Sheriff Dever stated that his officers will transport unlawfully present persons to federal authorities if federal authorities are unresponsive."
How about Sheriff Joe Arpaio's comments to The Daily Caller following the Supreme Court decision?
"[I]t will be interesting when we arrest someone," he told the reporter. "What will I do with them? Dump them on the street? . . . Let them go? . . . I don't like to do that [because] that's amnesty . . . I'm going to see what other options I have."
According to S & W, Arpaio's not trying to figure out a way around the Supreme Court's edict that 2(b) has to be interpreted in a narrow and constitutional manner. Nah, Joe doesn't want to prolong anyone's detention in violation of the Fourth Amendment. And even if he did, the defendants argue that such statements to the press are not admissible anyway.
Moreover, S & W maintains that the recently-concluded racial profiling trial Melendres v. Arpaio gives absolutely no indication of how some law enforcement agencies will apply section 2(b).
Ditto historical precedents such as the infamous Chandler roundup, or the fact that Arizona's been known to violate the voting rights of minorities. Not to mention the racial and ethnic animus endemic to Sand Land.
What about knee-jerk, prejudiced ballot propositions, like Arizona's English-only amendment to the state constitution? Surely, this is some evidence of the racist intent of its proponents.
Pshaw, S & W spits.
"Approximately 74 percent of Arizona voters approved this law," the defendants note.
To which, I say, three quarters of the public is guilty as charged. Nativism, bigotry and racial profiling are popular here in the Land Time Forgot, just as segregation was in its day.
Bigoted politicians such as Russell Pearce and Joe Arpaio have been (at least up until Pearce's recall) manifestations of the popular will. The same can be said of racist laws these pols create, like SB 1070.
Or as my Aunt Nellie might posit, if 74 percent of Arizonans jumped off a cliff, would you do the same?
S & W would like for Judge Bolton to discount all of the racist filth Pearce forwarded via e-mails while he was a state Legislator working to make 1070 law.
The disgusting lies about the undocumented that poured from Pearce's porthole while he was pimping 1070? Weirdly enough, the Snell & Wilmer legal team does its best to defend such drek.
Even crusty canards, oft-repeated by prejudiced pols and oft shown to be wildly inaccurate by myself and a slew of others, are presented as somehow legitimate by the clowns at Snell & Wilmer.
These legal lightweights defend as reliable Pearce's outrageous statements that: 1) "9,000 Americans [are] killed every year at the hands of illegal aliens"; 2) "`67 percent' of law enforcement officers killed in `the last few years' have been murdered by illegal aliens"; and 3) "10 a day [coming across the U.S.-Mexico border] according to the Atlanta Science Foundation...are sexual predators."
Here's one swipe at yours truly by the S & W brain trust:
"Plaintiffs also accuse Senator Pearce of knowingly citing false statistics because he allegedly did not return a phone call and because some opinion editorials in the Phoenix New Times question the accuracy of Senator Pearce's facts.
"Even if the blogs and opinion editorials Plaintiffs cite were reliable (which they are not), they fail to establish the falsity of Senator Pearce's statistics, much less that Senator Pearce `knew' the statistics were false when he relayed them."
Whether or not lead defense attorney John Bouma's rocket-scientist scribblers find me (and yes, they are referring to me) "reliable" is irrelevant. Pearce's stats are bogus. I've proved that, as have numerous others.
Throw what I've written right out the window, if you please. It won't change the falsity of Pearce's bogus factoids. And yes, he knows they are false, because he has repeated them ad nauseam, been proved wrong, called a liar in print and to his face (by me, on several occasions), and yet, continues to regurgitate them.
Oh, and then there's this passage in the defense's filing, palmed off in a footnote:
"Plaintiffs also criticize Senator Pearce for citing statistics compiled by criminal profiler, Deborah Schurman-Kauflin. According to Plaintiffs, these statistics are `specious' because they were `debunked' by a reporter for the Phoenix New Times. Contrary to Plaintiffs' assertions, the fact that a Phoenix New Times reporter criticized the statistics compiled by a professional profiler with two postgraduate degrees does not make the `implausibility' of the statistics `obvious.'"
I'd add to that stunning piece of obviousness that the opposite is true as well. That is, just because the cretinous author of this sniveling little footnote sniffs at a Phoenix New Times reporter's blog, doesn't mean the blog is incorrect.
If Bouma & Co. want to own Schurman-Kauflin's work on this subject, despite her paper being self-published, non peer-reviewed, and lacking academic standing, by all means, go right ahead. Perhaps money-bags Bouma would like to adopt Schurman-Kauflin's errors in logic, math and statistics as his own.
But before he does, he may wish to peruse Schurman-Kauflin's other articles, such as Ted Bundy Lives: Islamic Terrorists Mimic Notorious Serial Killer, The Fantasy Life Of The Female Multiple Murderer, and Serial Sex: Why Celebrities & Politicians Risk Everything for Forbidden Pleasure. Perhaps Bouma can use one of these as a source for his next appeal to the Ninth Circuit.
As far as degrees go, well, William Shockley had a PhD from M.I.T., won a Nobel Prize for physics, and helped invent the transistor, and yet, there are not many these days who would endorse his opinions on race and eugenics. By the logic of Bouma's pettifoggers, Shockley's racist views could not be questioned by a mere journalist, who lacks the academic achievements of someone like Shockley.
Ironically, by the Bouma's boys' line of reasoning, the opinions of Governor Brewer and Pearce cannot withstand my analysis because I'm better educated than both of them put together. Which isn't saying much.
But if my blog so offends, I direct you to a few of the many critiques of Schurman-Kauflin's bush-league analysis, offered by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Media Matters, and Utah's Deseret News, which notes:
The claim that illegal immigrants have committed 1 million sex crimes is equally dubious. It comes from a 2008 article called "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration" by Deborah Schurman-Kauflin, who runs a website called Violent Crimes Institute. Schurman-Kauflin, a popular television personality,says she's analyzed 1,500 sex crime cases in 36 states, profiling aberrant sex crimes, sadistic murders, serial rapes and murders, stalking, abductions, and other unusual cases for police around the world.
She explains: "Based on population numbers of 12 million illegal immigrants and the fact that young males make up more of this population than the general U.S. population, sex offenders in the illegal immigrant group make up a higher percentage. When examining ICE reports and public records, it is consistent to find sex offenders making up 2 percent of illegals apprehended. Based on this 2 percent figure, which is conservative, there are approximately 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States." She then multiplied that times an average of four victims per sex offender to come up with the "million sex crimes" figure.
The glitch here is that 2 percent of illegals apprehended is not the same as 2 percent of all illegal immigrants.
No duh, huh?
Bouma, despite his own higher education, has placed himself in the same position as Fredric March's character in Inherit the Wind, who was obligated to defend the idea that the Joshua of the Old Testament was able (with the help of Yahweh) to hold the sun still in the sky.
Who appeared pathetic at the end of that flick? Not March's foil Spencer Tracy, playing a version of Clarence Darrow to March's version of William Jennings Bryan.
Despite our talents, our degrees and achievements, or lack thereof, I believe, perhaps naively, that we all get to choose what side of the game of life we'll play on. Those who labor for the likes of corporate law giant Snell & Wilmer have chosen their side. Their reward is all of the filthy lucre they will score doing the bidding of nativists and bigots.
But they pay a price. That price is that they are on the wrong side of history. Snell & Wilmer might as well be prosecuting Martin Luther King, Jr. or Nelson Mandela, or defending the "scientific racism" of the 19th Century.
What side would you rather fight for? Spencer Tracy's or Frederic March's? Clarence Darrow's or William Jennings Bryan?
You watch, the battle over 1070 will one day be viewed in the same light as the Civil Rights Movement, the battle for universal education, and the fight for women's suffrage.
And the paper-pushers, pettifoggers and corporate lickspittles of Snell & Wilmer? Doomed to ignominy, they are. And rightly so.
You can read the plaintiffs' motion for an injunction on 2(b), here.
You can read Snell & Wilmer's reply to that motion, here.
