There have been many unusual and controversial presidential pardons issued throughout US history. One of the most recent ones shaping today’s social discourse was when President Trump issued his first pardon to Joe Arpaio, America’s toughest sheriff in Maricopa County, Arizona. You may know of his notoriety, but one of his many heinous acts includes the wrongful imprisonment of Village Voice owners, Jim Larkin and Michael Lacey.

The Arpaio Backstory

Just over 10 years ago, under the cover of darkness, Maricopa County Selective Enforcement Unit agents were knocking on the doors of two homes in Phoenix, Arizona. These homes belonged to Jim Larkin and Michael Lacey. By order of Joe Arpaio, the agents hauled these two men from their homes and imprisoned them under the charges of disclosing details about a grand-jury investigation.

Both Lacey and Larkin were both involved in the Village Voice Media newspaper, the former being the executive editor and the latter its CEO. Earlier the same day they published a piece talking about the probe of a grand jury in a Village Voice Media publication, the Phoenix New Times. What Lacey and Larkin didn’t know at the time was that this grand jury had been investigating them.

Arpaio had been frustrated by the increasing coverage of his overly aggressive law enforcement tactics defining the Sheriff’s department since his inauguration into office in 1992. Arpaio’s infamous Tent City and his various orders against women and inmates (especially if they held status as immigrants), were brought up several times before by various publications.

Since Arpaio has been in office, there have been multiple cases where Arpaio was told what was legally admissible and what wasn’t. In 2011, United States District Judge Murray Snow told the sheriff detaining immigrants due to suspicion isn’t sufficient grounds for detainment. Since there was no evidence that the detainee did or did not have proper status, it was against constitutional law to hold that person.

Those types of instances were addressed behind closed doors several times before 2011. Eventually, they rose to the surface when a lawsuit was filed against Arpaio roughly 10 years ago. The file exposed the conditions faced by inmates in Tent City, and based on that information, Mr. Arpaio was charged with violating the rights of Latinos and other immigrant groups.

Joe Arpaio remained defiant of the charges and continued to do his work, encouraging his employees to continue racial profiling of Latinos and exchange over to immigration services. Joe Arpaio kept continuing this practice for years until the outcry from people opposed to Arpaio’s abuses of power finally caught the attention of reporters.

It was here when Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin started muck-raking and began to expose Arpaio to the American public. They wrote about Arpaio on multiple instances and butted heads against the department on multiple occasions. This eventually led to the two men being arrested, but only after they were targeted by a special prosecution team who created the grand jury they decided to report on in the Phoenix New Times.

At the time Lacey and Larkin were releasing these stories, many newspapers were not covering Arpaio at all. A report on an arrest made by Arpaio’s Sheriff’s department was not something out of the ordinary. However, as more newspapers began releasing articles and information derived from Lacey and Larkin’s original work, the scandal became more magnified to the point where it was receiving national coverage.

Lacey and Larkin were released after 24 days in prison and filed a suit against Arpaio, exposing more information about his malpractices and corruption. The suit was settled for $3.7 million.

How Does Trump Fit Into This?

Arpaio was not in an advantageous position after the settlement. First off, he did not win re-election for a potential seventh term as Sheriff. Furthermore, in July 2017, Arpaio was charged with contempt in court during the Melendres suit. It was only due to his experience as a politician that he was able to find good graces within the Trump administration, all the way to the Oval Office.

“One can’t help wondering whether Arpaio, always a wily reader of political wind shifts, sensed that 2016 was the end of the road and executed an exit strategy” writes Phoenix New Times’ Stephen Lemons after the pardon. “He endorsed Trump’s presidential candidacy in January of that year, a time when most were mocking the notion that the boorish billionaire would secure the GOP nomination.”

Arpaio indeed had endorsed Trump at an early stage in the campaign, speaking up for him to the point that Trump hinted he was going to pardon Arpaio in one of his campaign speeches. AThe reason why Trump would pardon Arpaio is up for debate. But Lacey believes Trump granted the pardon due to a need to appeal to his audience base: nationalists who view Arpaio as a hero.

Following this strategy on the campaign trail proves an effective political strategy for Trump when considering the general nature of his speeches. Pandering to his voter base by claiming he might pardon Arpaio would certainly work in Trump’s favor politically.

The Aftermath

During Arpaio’s tenure in Arizona, the Latino community was slowly being undermined. With police officers under Arpaio acting as mouthpieces to his racist policies, it was an uphill battle for both the victims of such policies and the progressives in opposition to such policies. Supporters of Arpaio rallied around him with ease, defending him with nationalist rhetoric painting Arpaio as the necessary figurehead of a crusade to remove “illegal immigrants”.

Human right movements, both regional and national, began to form in response to the many cases which have built Arpaio’s legacy. They rallied around the Latino community and swore to help protect them. One of the largest organizations happens to be the one Lacey and Larkin run now. They used the settlement cash and the time given to them after their retirement to create the Frontera Fund. This is a group that helps Latinos and other members of society protect their First Amendment rights.

As a result of these efforts, the fund has started to fight back against the rhetoric of Arpaio, making his goal of discrediting opposition all the more difficult to accomplish. There was an even stronger push against the rhetoric once Arpaio was charged with criminal contempt in 2017, a misdemeanor that can be punished with a maximum sentence of six months.

With the pardon from President Trump now made official, it’s difficult to say where this pardon will lead Arpaio and what will happen with his crusade. Despite this, people are more aware of Arpaio’s misdeeds, and with more and more movements sprouting, there is certainly hope support of Arpaio’s agenda can be curbed permanently.

Read our previous coverage of Sheriff Joe Arpaio: https://thenewsversion.com/2017/08/the-fall-of-sheriff-joe-arpaio-after-jim-larkin-and-michael-lacey-controversy/