Tim Casey, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s longtime lawyer, wants out of the hot-potato Melendres racial-profiling case now that it’s in a “compliance phase.”
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona don’t want him to leave so fast, though — not with questions and things left to discover related to corrupt deputy Ramon Charley Armendariz, who hung himself in May rather than submit to arrest.
The Armendariz probe is a spin-off of the Melendres case, which concluded at the trial-court level last year when U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow found that the MCSO under Arpaio had committed racial profiling against Hispanics. His conclusion added to a similar, damning finding by the U.S. Department of Justice investigation. Since then, Arpaio’s shop has been placed under the eyes of Robert Warshaw, a court-appointed federal monitor. But Warshaw most-recent report shows that Arpaio is having trouble complying with Snow’s 2013 order.
On Friday, Casey, James Williams and the law firm of Schmitt Schneck Smyth Casey & Even, P.C., submitted a motion to Snow, asking to be allowed to withdraw from the long-running case. Noting that the application for withdrawal includes Arpaio’s signature, Casey’s motion states that he and the firm should be able to depart without too much trouble.
More at the Phoenix New Times.
