Woman sues Arpaio’s Maricopa County for mistreatment before and after she gave birth in 2009
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A woman has sued the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and others claiming that county employees exhibited deliberate indifference to her medical needs and violated her constitutional rights against cruel and unusual punishment when they kept her shackled before and after her 2009 Caesarean section.
The lawsuit, as support for the woman’s claims, cites a recently released Justice Department report accusing the Sheriff’s Office of discrimination and Maricopa County’s struggles with maintaining accreditation in its jail health-care facilities.
Miriam Mendiola-Martinez was pregnant when Scottsdale police arrested her in October 2009 on forgery charges, and she remained in jail without bail due to a voter-approved measure that denied bond to undocumented immigrants suspected of committing certain crimes.
Mendiola-Martinez pleaded guilty to solicitation to commit forgery in December 2009 but went into labor before she was sentenced, according to her complaint.
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The lawsuit claims that detention officers ignored Mendiola-Martinez’s cries for help because they were made in Spanish and she had to ask someone who spoke English to translate her complaints to the officers.
The Justice Department’s report issued last week claimed that sheriff’s officers discriminated against Latino inmates in the jails by denying critical services as punishment for the inmates’ failure to communicate in English.
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Sick of Arpaio yet?