The Department of Justice will monitor Arizona's tough-talking Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his department to make sure they're implementing court-ordered reforms on policing tactics.
The federal department on Tuesday was given the right to intervene in 2013 lawsuit that accused Arpaio, who calls himself "America's toughest sheriff," and his department of racial profiling,
the International Business Times reports.
A partial settlement reached last month resulted in the reforms – including demands Arpaio
provide bilingual services for jail inmates; a ruling is still pending on charges Arpaio's deputies discriminated against Hispanics by targeting them during traffic enforcement procedures.
"As a party in the [lawsuit], the Department of Justice can now work together with the court, the plaintiffs and the independent monitor to ensure that the Maricopa County sheriff's office meaningfully implements the court-ordered reforms, so that the constitutional rights of all people of Maricopa County are protected," Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mark Kappelhoff said in a statement, IBTimes reports.
"The Constitution guarantees that all people receive the equal protection of the law, and the department is now positioned to ensure that this important right is upheld."
Meanwhile,
the Washington Times reports the Arizona lawman has petitioned to have federal Judge G. Murray Snow kicked off the case, telling an appeals court Snow's wife admitted to friends that her husband "hates" Arpaio and wants him out of office.
Arpaio
is currently running for a seventh term as sheriff next year.
Arpaio
took his argument to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after Snow rejected a request to step down, the newspaper reports.
"The court, clearly angry over the suggestion that he hates the sheriff and would do what it takes to get him out of office, morphed from objective adjudicator into an advocate, giving his own testimony, asking leading questions, becoming argumentative with the putative contemnors when they testified, and taking 'evidence' from outside of court," Arpaio said in his filing, the Washington Times reports.
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