JOE BIDEN LOVES BENGHAZI. LOL.

Federal Judge Rules Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio, Racially Profiled Latinos In Arizona Traffic Stops.

Judge finds Ariz. sheriff’s office racially profiles Latinos in immigration patrol

PHOENIX — A federal judge ruled Friday that the office of America’s self-proclaimed toughest sheriff systematically singled out Latinos in its trademark immigration patrols, marking the first finding by a court that the agency racially profiles people.

The 142-page decision by U.S. District Judge Murray Snow in Phoenix backs up allegations that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s critics have made for years that his officers rely on race in their immigration enforcement.

Snow, whose ruling came more than eight months after a seven-day non-jury trial on the subject, also ruled Arpaio’s deputies unreasonably prolonged the detentions of people who were pulled over.

A small group of Latinos alleged in a lawsuit that Arpaio’s deputies pulled over some vehicles only to make immigration status checks. The group asked Snow to issue injunctions barring the sheriff’s office from discriminatory policing and the judge ruled that more remedies could be ordered in the future.

The sheriff won’t face jail time or fines as a result of the ruling.

The group also accused the sheriff of ordering some immigration patrols not based on reports of crime but rather on letters and emails from Arizonans who complained about people with dark skin congregating in an area or speaking Spanish. The group’s attorneys pointed out that Arpaio sent thank-you notes to some people who wrote the complaints.

The sheriff has repeatedly denied the allegations, saying his deputies only stop people when they think a crime has been committed and that he wasn’t the person who picked the location of the patrols. His lawyers also said there was nothing wrong with the thank-you notes.

The ruling represents a victory for those who pushed the lawsuit. They weren’t seeking money damages but rather a declaration that Arpaio’s office racially profiles and an order that requires it to make policy changes.

Stanley Young, the lead lawyer who argued the case against Arpaio, said he was still reading the decision Friday afternoon but was happy that the court ruled the sheriff violated the constitutional rights of Latinos.

He said the decision contained “very detailed findings of discriminatory intent and effect.”

Young said Snow set a hearing for June 14 where he will hear from the two sides on how to make sure the orders in the ruling are carried out.

“It’s a great day for all the people of Maricopa County,” said Cecillia D. Wang, director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Right Project. “For too long the sheriff has been victimizing the people he’s meant to serve with his discriminatory policy. Today we’re seeing justice for everyone in the county.”

Tim Casey, Arpaio’s lead attorney, declined comment until after reading Snow’s decision.

Arapio, who turns 81 next month, was elected in November to his sixth consecutive term as sheriff in Arizona’s most populous county.

Known for jailing inmates in tents and making prisoners wear pink underwear, Arpaio started doing immigration enforcement six years as Arizona voters grew frustrated with the state’s role as the nation’s busiest illegal entryway.

Snow wrote that “in the absence of further facts that would give rise to reasonable suspicion or probable cause that a violation of either federal criminal law or applicable state law is occurring,” Arpaio’s office now is enjoined from enforcing its policy “on checking the immigration status of people detained without state charges, using Hispanic ancestry or race as any factor in making law enforcement decisions pertaining to whether a person is authorized to be in the country, and unconstitutionally lengthening stops.”

Snow added that “the evidence introduced at trial establishes that, in the past, the MCSO has aggressively protected its right to engage in immigration and immigration-related enforcement operations even when it had no accurate legal basis for doing so.”

The trial that ended Aug. 2 focused on Latinos who were stopped during both routine traffic patrols and special immigration patrols known as “sweeps.”

During the sweeps, deputies flood an area of a city — in some cases, heavily Latino areas — over several days to seek out traffic violators and arrest other offenders. Illegal immigrants accounted for 57 percent of the 1,500 people arrested in the 20 sweeps conducted by his office since January 2008, according to figures provided by Arpaio’s office.

At trial, plaintiffs’ lawyers drew testimony from witnesses who broke down in tears as they described encounters with authorities, saying they were pulled over because they were Hispanic and officers wanted to check their immigration status, not because they had committed an infraction. The sheriff’s attorneys disputed such characterizations, typically working to show that officers had probable cause to stop the drivers based on a traffic violation.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers also presented statistics to show that Latinos are more likely to be stopped on days of immigration patrols and showed emails containing offensive jokes about people of Mexican heritage that were circulated among sheriff’s department employees, including a supervisor in Arpaio’s immigrant smuggling squad.

Defense lawyers disputed the statistical findings and said that officers who circulated offensive jokes were disciplined. They also denied that the complaint letters prompted patrols with a discriminatory motive.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Jodi Arias' Jury Foreman: "She Was Not A Good Witness." Well ... Duh! She's A PSYCHO Pathological Unrepentant Liar.

Jodi Arias Jury Foreman: '18 Days of Testimony Hurt Her'

The man in charge of the jury that convicted Jodi Arias of murder but could not reach agreement on whether her life should be spared described the process as "gut-wrenching" and said he and his fellow jurors struggled to contain their emotions.
"We couldn't allow ourselves to be emotional on the stand," jury foreman William Zervakos said today on "Good Morning America." "We couldn't allow ourselves to show emotion [but] it was a different story when we got back into the jury room."
Some of the most emotional moments during the five-month trial came over the 18 days when Arias, 32, took the stand and described her relationship with Travis Alexander, the ex-boyfriend whom she was convicted last week of stabbing and shooting to death in 2008.

Arias pled for her life also during the sentencing phase of the trial, but Zervakos says her long stint on the stand didn't help her case, especially when she was cross-examined by the prosecutor.
"I think 18 days hurt her. I think she was not a good witness...I think the way the prosecutor was with her, he's known for an aggressive style. I think it'd be difficult for anybody," Zervakos said. "I don't think I want to sit on the stand for 18 days.
"We're charged with going in presuming innocence, right, but she was on the stand for so long. I don't think it did her any good," Zervakos added. "There were so many contradicting stories."

RELATED: Jodi Arias Could Join Husband Killer, Vigilante Murderer on Death Row

Arias had been branded a liar by the prosecution because she initially denied killing Alexander, then claimed two years later that she killed him in self-defense, citing Alexander's physical and emotional abuse.
 
READ MORE: 9 Most Shocking Moments of the Jodi Arias Trial

Zervakos, for one, believed Arias' story that she was abused in the relationship, but not that she killed Alexander in self-defense.
"I'm very sure in my own mind that she was mentally and verbally abused," he said. "Now is that an excuse? Of course not. Does it factor into the decisions that we make? It has to."
Arias' appearance - from her blonde bombshell look while she was dating Alexander, to the more subdued look she presented in the courtroom with glasses, bangs and dark hair - that captivated the media and the public throughout the trial, seemed to captivate the jurors inside the courtroom as well.

See ABC News' Full Coverage of the Jodi Arias Trial

"When I looked in the courtroom for the first time and looked who the defendant was, it's hard to put that in perspective when you look at a young woman and think of the crime and then think of the brutality of the crime," Zervakos said. "It just doesn't wash so it's very difficult to divest yourself from the personal, from the emotional part of it."

After the jury's hung verdict was read Thursday, leaving the case still open, one juror mouthed, "I'm so sorry," toward Alexander's family and prosecutors.
Zervakos says he and other jurors struggled greatly with seeing Alexander's family every day in the courtroom.
"Until you're face-to-face with people that have gone through something like that, it's something you really can't put into words," he said on "GMA." "I'm six feet away from somebody talking about a horrendous loss. If you can't feel that, then you have no emotion, no soul."

Arias' fate is now left up to the prosecutor, who will decide whether to retry the penalty phase. If he decides to try again for the death penalty, a new jury will be selected and both the prosecution and defense will present evidence and arguments over what sentence Arias should receive.
The retrial, in which Arias can either be sentenced to death or to life in prison, with or without the possibility of parole, would begin July 18.
The prosecutor's office has not yet decided what it plans to do.

HANS POPPE, Kentucky Lawyer Who Fainted During Jury Trial, Sued For Costs Of Mistrial He Caused.

Read more here.

How We ALL Should Now See The IRS.