The Pardons of President Trump Part 1 - Joseph M. Arpaio
One of the things that I was shocked to discover was that President Trump issued 144 pardons in his time in office. To date, President Biden has issued 25. This extreme number intrigued me but what I discovered when I started reading about some of these shook me. (To be fair, I will be offering The Pardons of President Biden next, but it will be a bit since I have to research 144 individuals for President Trump.)
Joseph M. Arpaio
Joseph M. Arpaio came under scrutiny when he was tried in 2013. The courts ruled that Arpaio along with his deputies had been racial profiling against Latino/as. In fact, the courts ruled that he had not only been profiling but illegally detaining individuals (which is a violation of these individual's Constitutional rights).
Arpaio was known for a number of different things in connection with his time as sheriff. He has been named in a number of civil rights cases for his treatment of prisoners, including his tent prison. Tent City was shut down in 2017 for being inhumane.
Ultimately those against Arpaio have accused him of racial profiling, criminal negligence, and abuses of power.
The group of Latino/a citizens were represented by the ACLU of Arizona, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the law firm of Covington & Burling LLP.
After the initial trial, a federal court upheld that you could not detain people solely on suspicion that they are illegal.
When he was done with his trial, he was barred from using these practices. However, he violated this court order and was being prosecuted for his violation of a court order which could have carried a 6 month prison sentence.
President Trump pardoned him which was quickly labeled by many an abuse of presidential power. Essentially because of his own anti-immigration stance, President Trump chose to pardon Arapaio offering that he would would face no consequences in connection with the case against him.
Since being pardoned, Arpaio petitioned the courts to remove the criminal conviction citing the pardon, but courts upheld the conviction instead.
Additionally, this pardon is being challenged by a number of different organizations.
Today, Joseph Arpaio is running for mayor of Fountain Hills stating that he can't slow down and that working has always been his hobby. While he is 92, he does not believe that he is too old to run for mayor. He also ran for mayor in 2022 and lost by 2,013 votes.
One recent report argues that Arpaio has cost the tax payers of AZ more than $100,000,000. The taxpayers have been burdened with paying a large protion of his legal bills. This is just for his six terms as a sherrif which include fees for legal issues, settlements, etc. in the cases that pertain to failed invesitgations of political enemies, jail deaths, and immigration raids at local businesses.
The kicker is that this figure does not include the $178,000,000 that has been spent on issues concerning his racial profiling tactics. So that is a total of nearly $300 million that AZ taxpayers have been burdered with for the actions of this one man. Oddly enough, this man is currently worth $500,000 even after draining so much from the taxpayers of his state.
Should he have been pardoned? It is obvious with the evidence stacked against him and the statements that he still makes that he is guilty of these charges. Is justice really served when someone has committed a crime and is convicted of said crime but then pardoned for political reasons not because laws have changed or that there is evidence in favor of them, but rather for political gains from the person offering the pardon? You be the judge and let me know what you think.
Many have questioned this pardon as being an abuse of power. That is not for me to decide but rather for those who are taking this case continually to the courts.
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