Arpaio attorney clashes with former lawyer over court’s immigration order

Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s defense lawyer continued to hammer Arpaio’s former attorney on the witness stand Tuesday, suggesting he was to blame if the Sheriff’s Office violated a court order because he did not clearly convey the order to command staff.

It was the second day of Arpaio’s criminal-contempt trial, in which attorneys are debating whether he willfully defied a federal judge’s order that prohibited immigration-law enforcement.

Arpaio is accused of illegally detaining at least 171 individuals between December 2011 and May 2013. The allegations stem from a racial-profiling lawsuit that began in 2007.

The case is still in the hands of Justice Department prosecutors, and only their witnesses have yet been called to testify. But Arpaio’s attorneys are responding with a vigorous offensive that’s twofold, targeting both former attorney Tim Casey and the underlying order itself.

District Court Judge Susan Bolton is presiding over the bench trial, which is scheduled to last eight days. Arpaio, 85, could be sentenced to a maximum of six months in jail if convicted, though legal experts say incarceration is unlikely.

Federal prosecutors on Tuesday called Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Dmitrius Whalen to the stand to outline the dozens of individuals who were allegedly detained illegally.

On Dec. 23, 2011, U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow issued a preliminary injunction that blocked sheriff’s deputies from holding those believed to live in the country illegally but not suspected of a state crime. Snow made the order permanent on May 23, 2013.

But in between this 17-month time span, deputies were still detaining individuals not accused of a crime and turning them over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Border Patrol. According to a spreadsheet Whalen created, this occurred 14 times after the Dec. 23 order in 2011, 97 times in 2012 and 60 times in 2013 before May 23.

Whalen said the numbers included only people detained by units specially assigned to immigration issues. When pressed by the dfense, Whalen said there were 19 others turned over to authorities who were not included on the list.

Defense attorney Dennis Wilenchik didn’t argue that Sheriff’s Office deputies transported individuals to federal immigration authorities after the December 2011 order.

His efforts on Tuesday were instead trained on Casey, whom he depicted as an ineffective communicator.

In his testimony on Monday and Tuesday, Casey said he boiled Snow’s order into two options: arrest or release, or “AOR.”

In the morning, Casey grew impatient with Wilenchik’s cross-examination. In responding to why he didn’t create a “CYA” file — make notes of conversations with his client — Casey said that wasn’t the relationship he had with Arpaio until he withdrew from the case.

Casey said there was never any criticism about his performance until now.

The prosecution will continue to call witnesses this morning.