Michael C. Manning

STINSON
MORRISON
HECKER

(602)212-8503
mmanning@stinson.com

LIP

www.stinson.com

1850 North Central Avenue
Suite 2100
Phoenix, AZ 85004-4584

Tel (602)279-1600

April 23, 2008

Fax(602)586-5240

Honorable Michael B. Mukasey
Attorney General of the United States
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Re:

Request for Civil Rights Investigation of the Sheriff of
Maricopa County, Arizona

Dear Mr. Attorney General:
I write to request an investigation into a pattern and practice of cruelty, abuse,
deliberate indifference, and willful civil right's violations against detainees and
inmates by Sheriff Joseph Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office.
I am a commercial litigation attorney practicing in Phoenix, Arizona, but have
served several families as counsel in wrongful death cases against Sheriff Arpaio and
his Maricopa County's Sheriffs Office. It is my belief that the Maricopa County jails
have become unconstitutional places of punishment. In support of this statement, the
following is a summary of some of the cases I have litigated against Sheriff Arpaio.
Other attorneys in this community have similar summaries.

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Let me begin with an inmate death civil rights case against Sheriff Arpaio that
settled recently for $2,000,000. The case was about the death of Brian Crenshaw.
Brian went into MCSO's jail for shoplifting dishtowels for his girlfriend. He was
legally blind and mentally disabled. Jail doctors told MCSO four times in writing
that Brian was too disabled and too vulnerable to be put in Tent City. MCSO ignored
their own doctor's orders and put him into Tent City. Brian could manage his mental
disability if he took his prescribed medicine each day. MCSO compounded the
cruelty of the dangerous placement into Tent City by deciding not to give Brian the
medicine he needed. Later, an overworked jail guard picked a fight with Brian,
cuffed him, then roughed him up badly enough that he had to be sent to the jail
infirmary. Without any hearing or investigation of Brian's claim of the guard's
excessive force, MCSO put him in solitary confinement, refused him his mental
health medication for six days, refused him the pain medication which had been
ordered by the jail doctor after the altercation, and offered Brian food only twice in
six days. Jail doctors were supposed to check on Brian's well-being three days into
his solitary confinement - they never did.