Justice, Plaintiffs Firms, Politics

How Trial Lawyers Ran Sheriff Joe Out Of Town, And Why Trump Should Pay Attention

How long will voters be content to foot the bill for the president?

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Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

President Trump made waves last week when he exercised his pardon power for the first time on “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” Joe Arpaio, ensuring that Sheriff Joe will never spend a day in jail for his July 31 conviction for criminal contempt of court. There’s no legitimate doubt that Trump has the constitutional authority to pardon the 85-year-old Arpaio, but it’s equally certain that Trump bypassed the Justice Department pardon processes, and that it served to further divide the nation into two camps: Trump’s base, and everybody else.

Much ink has been spilled on the topic so far, but what’s often lost from the discussion is that Sheriff Joe was no longer Sheriff Joe on the day he was pardoned, and he hadn’t been for nearly a year. The man who won election landslide after landslide for 24 years was voted out of office as Maricopa County Sheriff by a 10-point margin in the November 2016 elections. In comparison, Trump won those same Maricopa County voters, that same night, by three points.

Arpaio’s ouster shocked outside observers familiar with Maricopa’s generally conservative, tough-on-crime electorate. But to those of us who lived in Sheriff Joe’s shadow, it was obvious that the legal headache of having Arpaio as Maricopa County’s Sheriff was no longer seen as worth it, even to many of his most die-hard supporters.

There are many reasons that Maricopa County finally got fed up with Arpaio. The pink underwear and vintage stripes he made his prisoners wear looked less cute and more dehumanizing as the years rolled on. He didn’t play well with neighboring departments, and he devoted significant time and resources to publicity stunts that often seemed to have little or no connection to public safety.

But the number one reason Arpaio’s electorate finally turned on him was almost certainly the harm he’d inflicted on their pocketbooks from years of protracted litigation defending his hard-lined policies. It’s easy for some to overlook massive numbers of prisoner suicides and unexplained deaths. It’s a lot harder to overlook the raw price tag that Arpaio’s version of justice comes with.

While it’s difficult to put a firm number on it, it’s estimated that the constant toll of lawsuits against Arpaio’s department and his alleged mismanagement of funds cost Maricopa taxpayers some $200 million over his tenure. It was Arizona’s trial lawyers who, settlement by settlement, verdict by verdict, built the case that finally ran the Wild West Sheriff out of town.

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It wasn’t just that Arpaio consciously cultivated a culture that many viewed as disregarding basic human dignity. It was that he couldn’t stop talking about it on TV. Arpaio’s long record of public boasting regarding the inhumane conditions of his jails — he once called his infamous tent city a “concentration camp” — only exacerbated his legal problems. Trial lawyers could pick and choose from a buffet of sound bites that might have played well in election videos but that looked callous and incendiary when played in front of a grieving family to an angry jury.

By the time the November 2016 election rolled around, Maricopa County was finally finished with Sheriff Joe. Arpaio faced tough polling early on, which didn’t get any better when he was referred to the Justice Department to face charges of criminal contempt of court by a federal judge who was appointed by George W. Bush. The judge, Murray Snow, had ordered Arpaio to cease a racial profiling operation geared toward rounding up Latinos to check their immigration status without any suspicion they had committed a crime. Arpaio’s own words were his undoing. After the judge issued his order, Arpaio publicly proclaimed that he didn’t intend to change anything about his program. He was further discovered to have hired a private investigator to investigate that same federal judge’s wife, presumably to use as leverage going forward.

If President Trump were the self-examining type, he might want to view the downfall of Sheriff Joe as a warning. Arpaio built his brand on being vehemently opposed to illegal immigration, equating toughness with cruelty, and peddling the racially charged “birther” conspiracy. Trump rode those exact same talking points to the presidency on the same night that Maricopa County showed Arpaio the door. Arpaio had a well-funded election campaign, extensive experience campaigning, the massive benefit of being an incumbent, and decades of experience working in the public sector; Trump had none of these, and was weighed down by scandals and tepid support from his party’s establishment. Yet Trump won Maricopa County on the night Arpaio could not because having the nation’s self-proclaimed toughest sheriff comes with a massive legal bill, and Maricopa County’s citizens were finally tired of paying for it.

Trump should heed these warnings. He’s been criticized for spending his constituents’ money at a prodigious pace, and is on track to spend in one year on travel to his various golf courses and vacations the same amount Obama spent in all eight years of his administration. The Secret Service has already run out of money under its current budget due to Trump’s extensive travel and large family, and much of that money has been paid to house agents in hotels and golf courses owned by… President Trump. In the meantime, lawsuits continue to pile up accusing Trump of profiting from the presidency (remember when you didn’t know what an emolument was?), and the endlessly unfolding Russia investigation continues to burn taxpayer dollars.

If you spend your constituents’ money, you need something to show for it. Sheriff Joe made a career out PR stunts designed to appeal to his base, but when voters caught on to what he was costing them, Arpaio was done. How long will they be content to foot the bill for the president?

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James Goodnow

James Goodnow is an attorney, author, commentator and Above the Law columnist. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Santa Clara University. He regularly appears in the national broadcast and print media, including CNN, HLN, Forbes and more. You can connect with James on Twitter (@JamesGoodnow) or by emailing him at James@JamesGoodnow.com.

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