{"id":6456,"date":"2011-12-28T20:51:11","date_gmt":"2011-12-24T15:24:06","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-12-24T15:24:06","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=6456","title":{"rendered":"AZ Republic: “Arpaio case: Latinos allowed to join class-action suit”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arpaio case: Latinos allowed to join class-action suit<\/a> by JJ Hensley:<\/p>\n

A federal judge issued a ruling Friday that will curtail the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office’s ability to target illegal immigrants and gives thousands of Hispanics standing in a civil lawsuit that seeks to fundamentally alter Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s immigration-enforcement efforts.<\/p>\n

Judge Murray Snow’s ruling created a class action, giving every Latino stopped, questioned or detained by the Sheriff’s Office since January 2007 standing in the 4-year-old civil-rights lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The suit does not request monetary awards but seeks to change the way Arpaio’s deputies enforce immigration laws.<\/p>\n

The judge’s ruling also bars all sheriff’s officers from arresting any person “only on knowledge or reasonable belief, without more, that the person is unlawfully present within the United States.”<\/p>\n

Such knowledge or belief, Snow ruled, does not amount to cause for arrest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

ACLU press release here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

PHOENIX \u2013 A federal district court has put a halt to the systematic practice by the Maricopa County Sheriff\u2019s Office of stopping and arresting Latinos based only on suspicion of unlawful presence in the United States and without any evidence of criminal activity, ruling that such detentions violate constitutional guarantees against unreasonable search and seizure.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow also ruled on Dec. 23 that the lawsuit against the sheriff\u2019s office, run by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, should proceed to trial on the separate claim of unconstitutional racial profiling and noted that the plaintiffs have already made a strong showing of intentional race discrimination. <\/p>\n

The court also ordered that the case should proceed as a class action. As a result, all Latino drivers and passengers who may be stopped, searched or detained unconstitutionally will have a remedy under today\u2019s order.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

At issue are so-called crime saturation patrols and traffic stops done without evidence of criminal activity, which the plaintiffs charge are motivated by racial bias, and result in racially discriminatory treatment. The ruling comes in a 2008 lawsuit filed on behalf of five individuals and the Somos America immigrants\u2019 rights coalition challenging racial profiling by the sheriff\u2019s office.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ortega-Melendres v. Arpaio, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148223 (D. Ariz. December 23, 2011).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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