The federal judge who found Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in civil contempt of court has denied the sheriff's request for an extension to respond to the findings.
Snow set a hearing for May 31 to discuss the civil remedies that will be imposed in the case. He gave the parties two weeks to respond in writing to the 162-page ruling ahead of the hearing.
In a motion filed Wednesday, attorney Justin Ackerman argued the sheriff’s defense team needed more time to respond to an order of this length.
“As this Court must be painfully aware, the Court’s Order is 162 pages, containing over 900 individual paragraphs,” Ackerman wrote. “This proceeding also involved over 20 days of trial testimony amounting to approximately 5,000 pages of trial transcripts and over 300 admitted exhibits.”
But Judge Murray Snow said in an order on Thursday that the timeline will remain in place.
Snow clarified that he was only inviting the parties to respond to matters pertaining to civil remedies, not substantive challenges to the court’s findings.
“The Court advised the parties that all issues of fact must be presented during the hearing and gave the parties a full opportunity to make arguments pertaining to that factual evidence,” Snow wrote. “The Court will not now, after its detailed review of the evidence and exhaustive factual findings, provide any party with a new opportunity to reargue the facts.”