In a long article, the Phoenix New Times blogs detailed testimony in a federal lawsuit against Arpaio. In one incident heard in court, legal US visitor Ortega Melendres was held in detention for 8 hours while his immigration status was being checked and alleges that he was the victim of racial profiling. According to the article, Sheriff Arpaio and Deputies lied under oath in court.
The credibility of Sheriff Arpaio is critical to several ongoing birther lawsuits that have used a sworn affidavit from Arpaio in briefs filed
Even if Sheriff Joe were the most honest man on Earth his “evidence” is worthless and provides zero support for his conclusions. While the fact that he may have lied in another trial obviously impeaches his testimony in birther cases, we don’t really need that in order to disregard his “evidence”. A badly done scientific study does not have to be fraudulent to be worthless. It is worthless even if the author has deluded himself into thinking it is true.
Doc,
I would think that the opposite is more important (since it involves Sheriff Joe lying in court)—Do you think Mr. Melendres and his lawyers know that the Maricopa CCCP got caught lying by a sneaky blogger? (who could have possibly predicted that someone would dig up the real manual that they’d been talking about? š ) It seems like this would be valuable information for the plaintiff…
This story was rather confusing in that it never says what case the testimony was received in.
the Melendres case was already tried and is awaiting final judgment. I think this testimony must be in the US v Arpaio case, but I’m not sure. I suspect folks in Arizona know all about the CCP.
Oh. In any case, I think Sheriff Joe’s birther activities are potentially more useful to impeach his credibility regarding other matters than any misconduct it represents on its own—after all, we know he’ll never let his birther allegations get anywhere near a court (I think they are running out of usefulness to him in any case… say by around Tuesday).
Can’t the same be said of every birther? š
That’s absolutely true; *we* don’t need Arpaio’s perjury to gauge the credibility of his evidence.
But the Birther line from the beginning, back in September 2011, has been that Arpaio is a lawman, and lawmen are trustworthy, therefore Arpaio’s “reports” must be trustworthy. They argue that Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse should be given credence because of who Arpaio is. It’s a quite straightforward argument from authority.
Arpaio committing perjury punctures his credibility in a way that even Birthers can’t dispute. It may not (and probably won’t) convince any of them to change their minds on the matter, but at least whenever they argue “Sheriff Arpaio wouldn’t lie in the course of a legal investigation”, one can reply “He already has! Under oath!”
“Sheriff Arpaio lied under oath”
You don’t say.
I thought police lying during trials is quite commonplace. There is even a word for it-“testilying” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_perjury
Lennie Briscoe did it on “Law and Order” and if the late, great Jerry Orbach did it, it must be true.
They don’t lie. They commit errors and omissions of facts and evidence.