The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia recently
dismissed a case against three media corporations – CNN,
Rolling Stone, and HuffPost – and several
employees of those corporations for publishing or broadcasting
allegedly defamatory statements regarding Joseph Arpaio’s
2017 criminal contempt of court conviction.
Arpaio is no stranger to public controversy. While serving as
sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona from 1993 to 2017, Arpaio was
often criticized for, among other things, his office’s
policing tactics in Latino neighborhoods. In one lawsuit against
him, Arpaio and his office were enjoined from detaining people
“based only on knowledge or reasonable belief . . . that
[they were] unlawfully present within the United States[.]”
Arpaio ignored the court’s order and continued to engage in
conduct that violated the injunction. In July 2017, Arpaio was
convicted of criminal contempt of court (a misdemeanor) for
willfully disobeying the injunction. In
