Daydreaming Idly

quickhits:

Things just haven’t been going Joe Arpaio’s way lately.

ACLU:

A federal district court has put a halt to the systematic practice by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s 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.

U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow also ruled on Dec. 23 that the lawsuit against the sheriff’s 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.

“The court’s injunction on our illegal seizure claim is a significant step toward stopping the sheriff’s office from violating people’s civil rights,” said Cecilia Wang, director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “The court’s order makes clear that MCSO violates the Fourth Amendment when it stops and detains merely based on a suspicion that a person is in the United States unlawfully.”

This is the latest in a series of setbacks for the anti-immigrant grandstander. The LA Times has a sampler:

[T]his week brought even more negative headlines for the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America:

— Monday: Miriam Mendiola-Martinez, who was jailed in Maricopa County in 2009, filed a lawsuit alleging that she was shackled on and off during her pregnancy — including immediately after her son’s C-section birth, according to the Phoenix New Times. Shackling pregnant women runs afoul of Arizona and federal corrections policies, the paper said.

— Tuesday: The family of Maricopa County inmate Ernest Atencio took him off life support, the Associated Press reported. Atencio, who was found unresponsive after fighting with sheriff’s deputies, had been booked on an assault charge earlier this month. His family is reportedly considering filing a lawsuit.

— Wednesday: Maricopa County detention officers turned in their federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement credentials in a staged-for-the-media event, the Arizona Republic reported. The Department of Homeland Security, in response to the Justice Department report, had stripped them of their authority to detain people on immigration charges.

Nice to see Arpaio finally getting the attention he deserves.