It’s time we all start moving past the Sheriff Joe Arpaio legal circus
Aug 23, 2016, 5:47 PM | Updated: Aug 24, 2016, 11:26 am
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Last Friday, it hit us like a brick as the word came down that U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow was referring Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio for criminal contempt charges.
Here at KTAR News, we started to dig through the details. We checked in with our legal analyst, Monica Lindstrom, and tried to find facts while everyone else was acting on emotion.
It didn’t take an hour for me to start getting texts and emails about the ruling.
It was immediately politicized. The emails were claiming this would never happen if Arpaio were a Democrat or if he wasn’t so tough on immigration!
I disagree that there is a political motive in now’s recommendation. Here’s why:
Put yourself in Snow’s shoes, but I don’t want you to pretend to be a judge. I want you to be a parent.
Stay with me. You’ll see where I’m going with this.
So in this hypothetical scenario, you, the parent, are Snow and Arpaio, the defendant, is played by your child.
You hand down an order that states your child is to act a certain way or do a certain thing. Your child responds by the blatantly disobeying your orders or your instructions, denies that he or she is blatantly avoiding your instruction and then hires one of their buddies to follow you around to see if they can dig up some dirt on mom or dad.
Now, tell me your punishment would have anything to do with your child’s political leanings.
Let’s just kick the Rs and the Ds to the side and find some common ground here.
I think we can all hold hands and agree that these trials are costing us taxpayers millions of dollars. Remember, we just had to vote to raid our state’s land trust just to fund our schools.
It’s time to close this litigious chapter of Maricopa County’s history and move on. Whether that means Arpaio agrees to a deal or steps down, this has to stop.
Its time to put this circus legal circus behind us.