CA9: Injunction against racially profiling Hispanics affirmed as modified

The injunction against the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office for profiling Hispanics is affirmed as modified. Ortega v. Arpaio, 13-16285 (9th Cir. April 15, 2015). The summary from the court follows:

Addressing the defendants’ sufficiency of the evidence argument, the panel held the district court did not clearly err in finding that defendants’ unconstitutional policies extended beyond the saturation patrol context. Moreover, the panel held that the district court did not err in holding that the named plaintiffs had standing to assert the claims of absent class members who were stopped during non-saturation patrols. For the same reasons, the panel held that there was no error in the district court’s class certification order.

The panel held that the injunction was not overbroad simply because it included non-saturation patrols. The panel further upheld specific provisions of the injunction pertaining to corrective training and supervision procedures and provisions requiring specific data collection and video recording of traffic stops. The panel additionally held that most of the provisions dealing with the scope of the appointed Monitor’s assessment authority were narrowly tailored to remedying the specific constitutional violations.

The panel held that the provisions of the injunction which broadly require the appointed Monitor to consider the internal investigations and reports of officer misconduct created a problem to the extent that such internal investigations and reports were unrelated to the constitutional violations found by the district court. The panel held that these provisions were not narrowly tailored to addressing the relevant violations of federal law. The panel therefore vacated those particular provisions and ordered the district court to tailor them so as to address only the constitutional violations at issue in this case.

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