Free Republic

Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio asked late Monday for his contempt of court conviction to be tossed or to get a new trial, saying the judge misread the history of the case, that it amounted to double-jeopardy, and that his trial should have been in front of a jury anyway. In two new filings in federal district court in Arizona, Arpaio’s lawyers offered up a number of reasons why the misdemeanor conviction should be tossed. The filings came after President Trump said over the weekend that he is “seriously considering” granting a pardon to Arpaio, an early supporter of his presidential...

In February, Georgia Administrative Judge Michael Malihi deliberately ignored fact, the language of the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent in manufacturing the logically and legally impossible decision that Barack Hussein Obama was indeed a “natural born citizen” of the United States and therefore eligible to be on the Georgia state ballot. This stunningly improper ruling–the sort to which the shameful disregard for common sense and legal ethics must always lead–made the judge a nationwide object of contempt and derision. Though a great many court watchers were discouraged by Malihi’s willful corruption of American justice, he did manage to provide one...

PHOENIX — The most dangerous place in Arizona right now, the day after a federal judge knocked down the key parts of SB 1070, the state’s proposed anti-illegal immigration bill, is between Joe Arpaio and a camera. Arpaio, the 78-year-old sheriff of Maricopa County (population 3.9 million) has cultivated a reputation for himself as the last true lawman of the West. He’s written two books, the last called “Joe’s Law: America’s Toughest Sheriff Takes on Illegal Immigration, Drugs, and Everything Else That Threatens America.” He has reintroduced chain gangs. He houses convicts in “Tent City,” where inmates remain exposed to...

It’s been thirty years, and I still miss the classroom. I taught American Political Theory to mostly seniors, Pre-Law or Political Science majors, that long ago. If any of them had submitted a paper as ill-thought-out as Judge Susan Bolton’s decision on the Arizona immigration law, I’d have given them an F, and made them rewrite it from scratch. Here’s why: The largest point is that this US District Judge ignored the very case that was presented to her for decision. The federal complaint attacked the Arizona law for only one general flaw. It claimed that the state law preempted...