Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern
Trump Pardons Sheriff Joe Arpaio for Defying a Court Order Against Racial Profiling (2017)
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.