President Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio on Friday, August 26, absolving the former Arizona sheriff of the contempt of court charge that stemmed from his refusal to obey a court order to abandon his department’s racial profiling policies. In the discussion that follows, Stanford Law Professor Robert Weisberg explains the charges against Arpaio and the implications of a Presidential pardon.

What was the original complaint or charge against Arpaio?

In effect the charge was racial profiling, even though that’s not really a legal term. He’d been detaining large numbers of people on the ostensible ground that there was reasonable suspicion that they were immigration law violators. But the evidence showed that his officers were actually detaining people simply because they supposedly looked Latino/a, without the reasonable suspicion of crime needed to justify a seizure. In addition to automobile stops, Arpaio specialized in so-called “saturation patrols” of Latino neighborhoods and places where day laborers gathered. So, lawsuits brought by both a class of private plaintiffs and the Department of Justice accused Arpaio of violating both the Equal Protection Clause and the Fourth Amendment. Also, his authorization to enforce federal immigration law was revoked because of these abuses, yet he continued to make these so-called immigration stops.

Can you explain the contempt of court conviction?

The history of this case is unbelievably convoluted, but here’s the gist. U.S. District Judge Murray Snow (appointed by G.W. Bush) issued a number of orders against Arpaio and ultimately issued an injunction requiring him to cease the detentions. Judge Snow also held Arpaio in civil contempt, a finding of which itself could have put Arpaio in jail (for as long as he was defying the orders). Ultimately the case was transferred to U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton (a Clinton appointee but a registered Independent who had been recommended by a Republican U.S. Senator).  Judge Bolton presided over a trial for criminal contempt because Arpaio was willfully refusing to comply with the injunction. Arpaio was awaiting sentencing on this charge when Trump pardoned him.