[caption id=”attachment_121465″ align=”aligncenter” width=”5616″] (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
[/caption]
The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from Sheriff Joe Arpaio Monday, leaving in place a lower court’s decision to strike down an Arizona law that denied bail to illegal immigrants with “serious” felonies.
At issue was an Arizona law passed in 2006 by a statewide ballot proposal. It was extremely popular in the state, passing by 78 percent to 22 percent.
Regardless of the public support, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled the law unconstitutional because it violated the 14th amendment’s due process clause, according to The Hill.
The case, Lopez-Valenzuela v. Arpaio, was a class action lawsuit filed by Angel Lopez-Valenzuela, an illegal immigrant arrested for drug smuggling and denied bail.
Only the most conservative members of the court, Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas wanted to review the case –one vote short of it being able to be reviewed by the Court for an official ruling.
“It is disheartening that there are not four members of this court who would even review the decision below. As I previously explained, states deserve our careful consideration when lower courts invalidate their constitutional provisions,” Thomas wrote in his dissenting opinion.
