Courtesy of
AZ Central:
After months of fiery hearings, legal filings and stern warnings, a federal judge presiding over a racial-profiling case has announced he will take legal action against the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio will face a civil contempt hearing in federal court this spring.
U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow announced during a Thursday telephone conference that he will oversee a civil contempt of court proceeding against the six-term Maricopa County sheriff during a four-day mini trial in April.
Snow has repeatedly threatened to level criminal- or civil-contempt proceedings against the office, and the judge spent the past week reviewing pleadings in which attorneys for Arpaio tried to persuade Snow not to take the monumental step.
Apparently the judge is pissed off that not only is the sheriff's office NOT providing all of the documentation requested by the judge, including body camera footage, but that they have continued conducting the kinds of traffic stops that got them into trouble in the first place.
Arpaio's attorneys are trying to explain away his behavior but the judge is simply not having it.
The trial is set for sometime in April.
