crimethink
20th August 2016, 01:46 PM
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2016/08/19/arpaio-criminal-contempt-decision/87587572/
Former U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton said there are few cases to look to for precedent. In a July interview, Charlton said he couldn’t think of another instance in which a federal judge had referred the head of a law-enforcement agency for criminal contempt.
“Fortunately in this country, it doesn’t happen,” Charlton said. “All of this is going to be relatively new in the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
(...)
Friday night, civil-rights advocates, many who have attended courtroom hearings or protested outside of them for years, celebrated what they saw as a step toward what they have demanded for years: to hold Arpaio and his aides criminally responsible for his office’s racial profiling of Latinos.
(...)
Noemi Romero, 24, was one of nine workers arrested in January 2013 after Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies raided Lam’s Supermarket, an Asian grocery store in Phoenix, looking for undocumented workers who were using other people’s Social Security numbers.
The name and Social Security number Romero was using belonged to her mother. She pleaded guilty to a felony charge of criminal impersonation. The felony conviction ruined her chances of applying for a federal program that allows undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to receive protection from deportation and a work permit. Romero was brought to the U.S. from Mexico when she was 3.
“When that happened to me, it was not just I that suffered, but my whole family suffered,” Romero said.
Romero spent three months and a week in jail.
She said of Arpaio, “I hope he does go to jail and is treated the way all these other people have been treated.”
Former U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton said there are few cases to look to for precedent. In a July interview, Charlton said he couldn’t think of another instance in which a federal judge had referred the head of a law-enforcement agency for criminal contempt.
“Fortunately in this country, it doesn’t happen,” Charlton said. “All of this is going to be relatively new in the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
(...)
Friday night, civil-rights advocates, many who have attended courtroom hearings or protested outside of them for years, celebrated what they saw as a step toward what they have demanded for years: to hold Arpaio and his aides criminally responsible for his office’s racial profiling of Latinos.
(...)
Noemi Romero, 24, was one of nine workers arrested in January 2013 after Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies raided Lam’s Supermarket, an Asian grocery store in Phoenix, looking for undocumented workers who were using other people’s Social Security numbers.
The name and Social Security number Romero was using belonged to her mother. She pleaded guilty to a felony charge of criminal impersonation. The felony conviction ruined her chances of applying for a federal program that allows undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to receive protection from deportation and a work permit. Romero was brought to the U.S. from Mexico when she was 3.
“When that happened to me, it was not just I that suffered, but my whole family suffered,” Romero said.
Romero spent three months and a week in jail.
She said of Arpaio, “I hope he does go to jail and is treated the way all these other people have been treated.”