Journalists Seem Slim On Details of Alleged Target By Arizona Sheriff

[Dan Levine]

Remember when Joe Arpaio -- the immigrant-hating Arizona sheriff who makes his inmates wear pink underpants -- lived the dream of many a cop by having his leading press critics arrested in the middle of the night, in front of their families? Those journalists had their day in front of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Friday, but the judges didn’t seem sympathetic to their claims against Sherriff Joe.

The media company in question is New Times, owner of an alt weekly in Phoenix (along with the SF Weekly). After they led a crusade against Arpaio for over a decade, a special prosecutor arrested Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin for printing a grand jury subpoena, an alleged violation of Arizona state law. 

Lacey and Larkin say this was just retaliation for all the critical Arpaio coverage. They brought a civil rights claim against Arpaio and the state prosecutors behind their arrest.

But Ninth Circuit panel Judge N. Randy Smith said he didn’t see many specific details alleged in the complaint that Arpaio was directly involved.

“I found no evidence, nothing, no facts,” Smith said. “Tell me where to find facts, and I’d be happy to look at them.”

Judge Jay Bybee also pointed out that the complaint had many details regarding the prosecutors, but not so much with Arpaio. Of course, the undercurrent here is the raised pleading standards recently laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Ashcroft v. Iqbal and another case. Now plaintiffs must be much more specific in their allegations in order for their cases to proceed.

If the circuit does dismiss the civil rights claims against Arpaio, Lacey and Larkin still have some state law torts they can pursue.

Comments

[Montana]

The Tea Bag Party are just “haters not debaters” or as others have dubbed them “screamers not dreamers”, with their failed attempts at stopping Healthcare reform, they say they respect the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence but they do not mind passing laws, through weak Governors (no one voted for this crazy) who only cares about getting elected Governor, on the backs of undocumented workers, that will not pass Constitution muster.

Brewer signed into law;

1. S.B. 1070,
2. No permit conceal weapons law,
3. The famous Birthers law,
4. Banning Ethnic studies law,

5. Could she be behind the Mural in Prescott, Arizona, ordered to be whiten,
6. On deck to pass, no citizenship to babies born to undocumented workers,

7. If she can read she should look up Arizona’s House Bill 2779 from two years ago (which was un-constitution and failed when legally challenged),
8. The boycotted Martin Luther King Day, what idiots don’t want another holiday? Yes, you guessed it Arizona.

Well Arizona, you can boycott new holidays and keep passing crazy laws and the rest of us will continue to challenged them in a court of law and continue to add cities to our Boycott of your state.

I real cannot believe anything that comes out of Brewer’s mouth, in an interview she first said her father had died in Germany fighting the Nazi in World War II (war ended 1945) but of course we find out the truth that father was never in Germany and died in California in 1955. But we are suppose to believe everything else she says, right! No one voted for you for Governor, yet you keep listening to the tiny brains of the crazies and signing into law everything that comes into their feeble minds, it only make you look dumb, stupid or racist, or maybe all three.

As for the Tea Bag Party, their phony patriotism is sickening; they are just racists going by another name. We all know you are just itching to put a sheet on their head? Let’s face it the Republicans had eight years to deal with health care, immigration, energy (remember Cheney’s secret meetings with oil companies where loosening regulation and oversight were sealed), climate change and financial oversight and governance and they failed. It appears that the Republican Party is only good at starting wars (two in eight years, with fat contracts to friends of Cheney/Bush) but not at winning wars as seen by the continuing line of body bags that keep coming home. The Republicans party will continue turned inward to their old fashion obstructionist party (and their Confederacy appreciation roots) because they continue to allow a small portions (but very loud portion) of their party of “birthers, baggers and blowhards” to rule their party. I will admit that this fringe is very good at playing “Follow the Leader” by listening to their dullard leaders, Beck, Hedgecock, Hannity, O’Reilly, Rush, Savage, Sarah Bailin, Orly Taitz, Victoria Jackson, Michele Bachmann and the rest of the Blowhards and acting as ill programmed robots (they have already acted against doctors that perform abortions).

[sacotomatoes]

Blowhard? That would be the Montana post. Plus, how about Mr. Levine's unbiased "immigrant hating" description that leads off in the article. It just becomes tiresome reading the left-leaning vomit in The Recorder/CalLaw. I wish the Tea Party good luck in their attempt to end big welfare government and throwing out free-spending irresponsible congress. HOw much in taxes do you actually pay Montana? I bet you are part of the 47% that pay NOTHING

[Dogmeat]

It is odd that there has been this big spike in right wing idiocy coming out of Arizona though. Texas has a higher background level of crazy and right now Arizona is like a supernova taking the attention. I wonder how long it will last.
Actually it isn't that strange. Arizona has been moving gradually towards the middle over the last twenty years. The population has doubled in that time and a big part of that spike wasn't old retirees who tended to be conservative, but a lot of younger families moving from blue states, etc. In 2008 McCain only received 53.4% of the vote here in Arizona, his sixth lowest vote total among the states he won. Now think about that, his home state was one of his least supportive states. Had McCain been from Texas, Florida, etc., he likely would have lost Arizona.

This state has a long history of very conservative, often racist politics and the supporters of those policies aren't happy that they are consistently losing ground to moderates and liberals (simply termed as liberals in their tirades). Because of how the state legislature is set up conservatives still have a major majority in both houses but, when Napolitano was governor, she vetoed a lot of their stupidity. In fact she set the record for vetoes in the history of the state. You take her away, bring in Brewer who is a wing-nut's wing-nut, and you see incredibly stupid legislation that was shut down by a reasonable governor make it out of the state house. At the same time you see an increase in non-conservative population as well as an increase in non-white population and the far white err, right is freaking out.

[Larry Wilson]

@Montana: hmmm, Aren't you a bit of a hater yourself? You refer to the Tea Party with a homophobic slur and then claim they are ALL racists. How is that constructive

It seems to me that there are those on the left like you who are much happier to denigrate your opponents then actually deal with the real issues that have been raised.