Judge cites Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone with contempt in racial profiling case

A federal judge took a familiar step Tuesday, finding Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone to be in civil contempt of his long-standing court orders.

U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow in Phoenix found the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office took too long to close investigations into staff misconduct, in a Tuesday ruling.

That caseload has grown to more than 2,000, with investigators taking nearly two years to close them, on average.

Snow ordered the Sheriff’s Office to begin reducing its growing backlog of internal investigations into all allegations of misconduct or else face stiff financial penalties that would have to be paid by taxpayers.

He is the same judge who found former Sheriff Joe Arpaio in civil contempt of his orders. Another judge in Phoenix found Arpaio guilty of criminal contempt.

The backlog stems from a series of court-mandated reforms that the Sheriff’s Office must comply with after Snow found the department engaged in systematic, widespread racial profiling of Latinos under then-Sheriff Arpaio. The reforms included setting up a system for community members to report, and then have the agency investigate employee misconduct.

“The failure to complete investigations in a timely manner has become so extreme as to render investigations completely ineffectual and render no service to either the complainant or MCSO personnel,” Snow wrote in his order this week.

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Penzone, the current sheriff, has long argued that while the department is not in total compliance, it has made significant process.

Snow announced his plans to issue the contempt finding against Penzone in August for failing to comply with court-mandated reforms at the agency he has led since 2017.

Penzone ousted Arpaio as Maricopa County sheriff in November 2016. He inherited responsibility to implement the reforms required by Snow's court orders.

Snow ordered reforms after finding that Sheriff Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office had engaged in widespread racial profiling by singling out Latino drivers in traffic stops.

Arpaio, in his high-profile and controversial campaign to clamp down on illegal immigration, ordered “saturation patrols” in mostly Latino areas of the county, stopping drivers and making arrests. Numerous U.S. citizens and legal residents were ensnared in these patrols.

In 2008, some of these drivers sued Arpaio in a class-action lawsuit known as Melendres v. Arpaio. Manuel Ortega Melendres was one of those individuals arrested, even though he was in the country legally.

In May 2013, nearly a year after a trial in the case was held in Phoenix, Snow ruled against the Arpaio finding that the Sheriff’s Office had violated the constitutional rights of drivers and had used race to target them.

Snow issued a court order mandating greater oversight over the agency and appointed a court monitor. But in May 2016, Snow issued a second order after finding Arpaio and his staff in civil contempt of court for ignoring the oversight requirements under his previous order to root out racial profiling.

Snow referred Arpaio to another federal judge in Phoenix to face criminal contempt charges. In July 2017, he was found guilty, but former President Donald Trump issued a pardon before Arpaio's sentencing.

Since 2008, the lawsuit and court-mandated reforms have cost county taxpayers well over $200 million.

In Tuesday’s order, Snow said more than 2,100 investigations are pending, and that it takes MCSO more than 600 days on average to close them. The length of time to investigate complaints has been rising each year, raising questions about Penzone’s ability to address them appropriately.

“To be sure, Sheriff Penzone has had at least some difficulty in implementing the court’s orders in the present environment. Nevertheless, he does not demonstrate that he has taken all reasonable steps to comply with the order, especially as the backlog has increased,” Snow wrote.

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“The backlog, despite Sheriff Penzone’s knowledge of it, only gets worse,” the judge added. “It may be that Sheriff Penzone welcomes this court’s intervention by way of contempt remedies to cure that backlog. In any event, he leaves the court with few options for obtaining compliance with its orders. Thus, the court holds the sheriff in civil contempt.”

To remedy the backlog, Snow outlined additional steps the Sheriff’s Office must take. First, he ordered the agency to maintain staffing at 39 investigators as part of the department’s Professional Standards Bureau, which is responsible for investigating deputy misconduct. It also puts the county on the hook financially for failing to address the backlog.

Seven of those positions have been unfilled – some of them since at least 2018, according to a report from a court management expert – even though the positions are funded, the court order noted. Snow gave Penzone 60 more days to fill those positions, or the county will have to pay the equivalent of triple salaries for each position left vacant.

That money would go into a Professional Standards Bureau Staffing Fund. MCSO can use that pot of money to hire additional investigators or independent contractors to help tackle the investigations’ backlog.

“Defendants can avoid paying fines by filling vacant positions at PSB, engaging contractors to staff PSB, and steadily decreasing the backlog. The Court expects MCSO to decrease the backlog at a reasonable rate – at least 20 cases each month,” Snow added.

Enforcement of the component order issued on Tuesday will fall under Robert Warshaw, the independent court monitor appointed by Snow, as long as the backlog remains in place. Progress will be tracked in quarterly reports that Warshaw submits to Snow.

“The time for excuses has run out — Sheriff Penzone has had over six years to fix the problems that continue to plague this agency and prove to the court and our clients that he is dedicated to rebuilding trust in the Latino community,” said Christine Wee, ACLU of Arizona senior staff attorney.

“Under Sheriff Penzone’s leadership, MCSO has continued to stop Latino and Black drivers at significantly higher rates than white drivers and has failed to repair a slow, broken process that allows for egregious delays in misconduct investigations,” Wee said.

“It should not take a contempt order to get Sheriff Penzone to finally address these glaring issues in the department.”

Penzone said he understood the court’s decision but disagreed with it.

Penzone claimed his office was currently in compliance with 92% of the order that focuses on internal investigations. In a written response to questions about the ruling, Penzone said those investigations have been found to be “high quality, imposing appropriate discipline.”

“Since I became sheriff, we have closed over 4,397 investigations,” Penzone wrote. “Despite our hard work and considerable staff, the volume of cases was overwhelming and exceeded the capacity of our internal affairs division.”

The Sheriff’s Office told a court management expert that it had doubled the size of the Professional Standard Bureau, its investigative branch. But in his report published in July, the court management expert found that the number of investigators, which would make the greatest impact in addressing the backlog, had remained roughly the same.

Raul Piña is a member of the Sheriff’s Office Community Advisory Board. It was established to help the agency rebuild trust with the community in the aftermath of the racial profiling lawsuit, especially among Latinos who make up a third of the county’s 4.5 million residents.

A traffic report published in June found that traffic stops for Latinos in Maricopa County were still more likely to last longer and happen more frequently. Piña said the backlog to address complaints created more challenges to rebuild confidence and trust, especially if racial profiling continues.

“If there's evidence of that and you file a complaint, who does it go to? What happens to it? It could be months before the complaint is addressed,” he said. “So the backlog is huge. MCSO needs to put the necessary resources to work to fix that. Otherwise, there's no confidence in the complaint process.”

Piña also claimed that the growing backlog and having funded, unfilled positions to address it also spoke to the Sheriff’s Office lack of priority to fix the issue.

While Penzone said he is committed to solving the investigation backlog, he cited COVID-19, protests, election security, a fentanyl crisis and difficulty in retaining and hiring as challenges that have hindered the agency's progress.

“Public safety remains my top priority while continuing to come into compliance with the court’s requirements,” Penzone said. “We will continue to move forward.”

Have any news tips or story ideas about immigration in the Southwest? Reach the reporter at rafael.carranza@arizonarepublic.com, or follow him on Twitter at @RafaelCarranza.

Have a news tip on the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office? Reach the reporter at jjenkins@arizonarepublic.com or at 812-243-5582. Follow him on Twitter @JimmyJenkins.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone with contempt in profiling case