By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — Troubling questions about a federal judge’s conflicts of interest and possible bias in a case against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio led Arpaio’s legal team to request that Judge Murray Snow recuse himself or, if Snow refuses, that it be assigned to a different judge.
Even an anti-Arpaio columnist for the state’s largest daily paper, Laurie Roberts of The Arizona Republic, said Arpaio’s team raised “a fair question,” one that local voters need to feel reassured about.
In alignment with the views of Arizona’s open-borders elite, Snow has hounded Arpaio’s office against enforcing immigration law, crafting a judicial ruling that the enforcement constitutes forbidden racial profiling.
Maricopa County is the fourth most-populous county in the nation. Arizona is one of the major U.S. gateways for illegal immigrants, who cross over from a dominantly Latino country.
In a powerful 19-page motion filed May 22, Arpaio’s attorneys argued that, among various compelling points, Snow had made his own wife a material witness in the case, and “Implicitly, Judge Snow has complete and unfettered access to a material witness in this case, his wife.”
Both of them, Arpaio’s attorneys said, have an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of these proceedings.
Snow had gone outside proper courtroom procedures and personally involved himself when questioning Arpaio, a Catholic, under oath on April 23, including asking if the sheriff was aware of anyone investigating Snow or his family. Arpaio replied he’d received a tip that Snow’s wife said Snow “wanted to do everything to make sure I’m not elected.”
The recusal motion said three members of another family, the Grissoms, were interviewed about that remark, and that family has “been unwavering in their recollection of the comments Judge Snow’s wife made regarding Judge Snow’s hatred toward Sheriff Arpaio and his desire to do anything to get him out of office. . . .
“Moreover,” the motion continued, “to date, neither Judge Snow nor Mrs. Snow have denied that Mrs. Snow made the statements attributed to her.”
Although some news media accounts inaccurately claimed there was a “secret investigation” of Snow’s wife — conveying apparent implications of intimidation or harassment — this attempt to verify that particular damaging comment was the extent of the inquiry.
In late April and early May The Wanderer was unsuccessful in inquiring about a possible recusal request being filed, but the answer came out in court on May 22.
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