It has been seven months since Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone was held in contempt of court by U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow in a long-running lawsuit originally brought against his predecessor, former Sheriff Joe Arpaio. It seems little has changed since then.
In November, Snow ruled that Penzone's inability to address a backlog of investigations into complaints about employee conduct amounted to contempt of court. "The backlog, despite Sheriff Penzone's knowledge of it, only gets worse," Snow wrote in his order.
Snow directed the county to pay steep fines if Penzone did not quickly hire more staff for the Professional Standards Bureau and start decreasing the backlog.
So far, Penzone has avoided paying any fines by rapidly hiring and transferring staff to the bureau, court records show. As a result, the case backlog has decreased — slightly.
In January 2023, there were 2,375 outstanding misconduct investigations. By April, the number dropped to 2,236. Most of those — 2,069 — are being investigated by the PSB though the sheriff's office is using other departments within the agency and outside vendors to chip away at the backlog.
Yet the average length of time to resolve a complaint is 593 days, which means some of the outstanding investigations date back years. While some of the complaints are minor or have been found to be baseless, others involve serious allegations, such as sexual assault or violence by sheriff's deputies and detention officers, records show.
But there are concerns about the quality of investigations completed by private vendors and other units inside the sheriff's office. On May 30, Robert Warshaw, the independent monitor appointed by Snow to oversee compliance in the ongoing lawsuit, released a quarterly report on MCSO's progress. In it, Warshaw noted that the quality of investigations completed outside of PSB had decreased by the end of 2022 and was an "ongoing cause for concern."
"The time it takes to conduct and close investigations remains unacceptable, and it is the agency that bears the responsibility to address this issue," Warshaw wrote.
Critics of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office say the agency is reluctant to abide by federal court oversight.
Matt Hennie
Penzone’s pending contempt appeal
The legal troubles of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office predate Penzone, who took the helm at the agency in 2016.The case that prompted the contempt of court citation, Melendres v. Arpaio, was filed in 2007 as a challenge to the widespread racial profiling practices by the MCSO under Arpaio's reign. More than a decade and $250 million later, the agency has not yet come into full compliance with court orders in the lawsuit.
Although Penzone has taken steps to avoid penalties laid out in the November contempt citation, his legal team also is appealing Snow's contempt ruling. Opening briefs are scheduled to be filed by both sides before the Ninth U.S. Circuit of Appeals over the next several weeks.
"This appeal does not in any way impact the sheriff's commitment to fully comply with all of the court's orders," Penzone wrote to MCSO employees in January.
But for Sylvia Herrera, a longtime community organizer in Phoenix and member of the Community Advisory Board that Snow ordered to meet with MCSO, the sheriff's appeal of the ruling is a sign of his reluctance to comply with the court orders.
"There was always reluctance on all aspects of the order, I think," Herrera told Phoenix New Times in an interview this week. "They don't want to be monitored by the court monitor. They don't want to be held accountable."
