{"slug":"arpaio-pardon-2017","title":"Trump Pardons Sheriff Joe Arpaio for Defying a Court Order Against Racial Profiling (2017)","date":"2017-08-25","lastUpdated":"2026-10-04","description":"On August 25, 2017, President Trump pardoned former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whom a federal judge had found guilty of criminal contempt on July 31, 2017 for willfully violating a court order that barred his office from detaining people based only on suspicion that they were in the country unlawfully. The order arose from a class action by Latino residents alleging racial profiling. The pardon came before sentencing. The district court refused to vacate the guilty verdict, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed in 2020.","summary":"A federal judge found Arpaio guilty of deliberately defying a court order meant to stop his deputies from detaining Latino drivers on immigration suspicion alone. Trump pardoned him before he could be sentenced, removing the courts' criminal sanction for an official's defiance of an order protecting constitutional rights.","category":"rule-of-law","severity":"critical","ongoing":false,"sources":[{"url":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2020/02/27/united_states_v._joseph_arpaio.pdf","title":"United States v. Arpaio, No. 17-10448 (9th Cir. Feb. 27, 2020)","publisher":"US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (via CourtListener)"},{"url":"https://text.npr.org/540629884","title":"Ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio Convicted Of Criminal Contempt","publisher":"NPR"},{"url":"https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/president-trump-pardons-sheriff-joe-arpaio/","title":"President Trump Pardons Sheriff Joe Arpaio","publisher":"The White House (archived)"}],"draft":false,"status":"published","tags":["pardons","Joe Arpaio","contempt of court","racial profiling","Melendres v. Arpaio","Latino","first term"],"relatedEntries":["racial-profiling-ice-enforcement","attacks-on-judiciary","trump-pardons-political-allies-first-term","first-term-family-separation-court-order-violation"],"timeline":[{"date":"2017-07-31","title":"Arpaio found guilty of criminal contempt","summary":"After a five-day bench trial, Judge Susan Bolton finds Arpaio guilty of criminal contempt for willfully violating Judge Snow's 2011 preliminary injunction; sentencing is set for October 2017 (Ninth Circuit opinion; NPR reports the verdict)."},{"date":"2017-08-25","title":"Trump pardons Arpaio before sentencing","summary":"Trump grants a full and unconditional pardon. The White House statement calls Arpaio a 'worthy candidate for a Presidential pardon.'"},{"date":"2020-02-27","title":"Ninth Circuit affirms refusal to vacate the verdict","summary":"A Ninth Circuit panel (Bybee, N.R. Smith, Collins) affirms the dismissal with prejudice and the district court's refusal to vacate the guilty verdict, holding that the verdict has no legal consequences that would justify vacatur."}],"location":{"name":"Maricopa County, Arizona"},"custom":{"era":"first-term","posture":"judicial-finding","internationalLaw":[{"statute":"International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination","article":"Articles 2, 5(b) and 6","provision":"Duty to end racial discrimination by public authorities; equal security of person; effective remedies (the United States is a party)"},{"statute":"International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights","article":"Articles 2(3), 9 and 26","provision":"Effective remedy; freedom from arbitrary detention; equal protection without discrimination"}],"iccRelevance":false,"victims":"Latino residents of Maricopa County, the plaintiff class in Melendres v. Arpaio, whom the courts found had been subjected to racial profiling and to detentions in violation of the injunction; and, structurally, the federal courts' authority to enforce orders protecting constitutional rights.","perpetrators":"President Donald Trump (pardon). The contempt itself was committed by Joe Arpaio, as found by Judge Bolton.","structuredPerpetrators":[{"name":"Donald Trump","role":"Granted the pardon","institution":"White House"}],"keyPoints":["In 2011 Judge G. Murray Snow preliminarily enjoined Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office 'from detaining any person based on knowledge, without more, that the person is unlawfully present within the United States' (Ninth Circuit opinion, 2020).","NPR reports that the office defied the order for about 18 months, and that in May 2013 Judge Snow ruled the office had engaged in racial profiling.","In 2016 Judge Snow found Arpaio had 'intentionally disobeyed' the injunction and 'did so based on the notoriety he received for, and the campaign donations he received because of, his immigration enforcement activity' (Ninth Circuit opinion).","On July 31, 2017 Judge Susan Bolton found Arpaio guilty of criminal contempt. She found he 'willfully violated the order by failing to do anything to ensure his subordinates' compliance and by directing them to continue to detain persons for whom no criminal charges could be filed' (NPR). The maximum penalty was six months in jail.","On August 25, 2017, before sentencing, Trump granted 'a full and unconditional pardon' covering the contempt and any other related offences (Ninth Circuit opinion). The White House said Arpaio had spent his career 'protecting the public from the scourges of crime and illegal immigration.'","The district court dismissed the case but refused to vacate the guilty verdict; on February 27, 2020 the Ninth Circuit affirmed (United States v. Arpaio, No. 17-10448)."],"searchAliases":["Joe Arpaio","Sheriff Joe","Arpaio pardon","Melendres"],"legalBasis":"Presidential pardon power (Art. II, §2); assessed against the courts' contempt power (18 U.S.C. §401(3)), the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection guarantee enforced in Melendres v. Arpaio, and ICERD and ICCPR obligations to provide effective remedies against discriminatory detention.","postureNote":"The contempt verdict and the pardon are matters of judicial record. The Ninth Circuit's 2020 opinion recounts the injunctions, the 2016 contempt findings, the 2017 verdict and the pardon. No court has held the pardon invalid; the courts declined to vacate the verdict but dismissed the case.","relatedIncidents":["racial-profiling-ice-enforcement","attacks-on-judiciary","trump-pardons-political-allies-first-term","first-term-family-separation-court-order-violation"]}}