PHOENIX (CN) — A federal judge on Friday considered imposing stiff sanctions on Arizona’s Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office if the office doesn’t quickly resolve a mountain of misconduct complaints arising from former Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s tenure.

The failure to complete investigations into more than 1,400 complaints has allowed a class action lawsuit filed nearly two decades ago to remain active, challenging the racist policy of “immigrant roundups” that unfairly detained Latinos on suspicion of non-citizenship.

In 2011, the policy was ruled unconstitutional, but the government, which describes itself asAmerica's Toughest Sheriff” — was found in criminal contempt in 2017 for continuing to order his deputies to enforce those rules.

7 years and After two sheriffsThe parties are still trying to find a solution to keep up with the drawn-out investigation. The ACLU and the sheriff's office representing the plaintiffs, along with the U.S. Department of Justice, offered two possible solutions earlier this month, but U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow has other ideas.

“After reading the report, I believe that answer is one that has not been provided by either party,” he said Friday afternoon in federal court in Phoenix.

Snow said that rather than mandating the hiring of 10 additional agents and doubling the average monthly completion rate, as both sides had requested, he would mandate a specific figure by which the defendants must reduce their backlog, which would increase each month until the number was zero. That way, Snow said, the hiring of new agents would be determined by need, not by court order.

“We're not going to order 10 new staff when in fact we need around 40,” he said.

When asked if the parties could review a draft of his proposed order, Snow thrust a stack of stapled documents in front of him and hurried off to a back room to print more copies for the remaining lawyers.

“I've always wanted to be secretary of state,” the appointee by President George W. Bush joked during a break from work at the printing press.

The parties have one week to review the draft and propose changes before Snow finalizes the order.

The two sides agree the backlog can be reasonably cleared by March 31, 2026. To do that, Sheriff's Office attorney Mary O'Grady said an average of 63 cases would need to be removed from the backlog each month while ensuring no new cases are added to the backlog.

“It's not a straight line to get to that goal,” she told Snow. Raising the monthly average to 63 could take several months to a year, depending on how quickly and how many investigators can be hired, she said.

Snow proposed reducing the number of cases that must be cleared starting in September — he gave 35 as an example — and increasing that number each month, he said, until an average of 63 cases are completed each month.

To ensure compliance, at the end of each quarter, the defendants are required to deposit twice the agent's annual salary, or $191,000, into a fund that can be used solely to hire additional agents for each month that they fail to meet their targets. For example, if, as of December 31, the Sheriff's Office reduced its case backlog by a required amount in October but failed to do so in November and December, it would be required to deposit four times the agent's annual salary into the fund.

“We need to reduce the backlog by a certain number or we won't have the funds to hire additional staff,” Snow said.

U.S. Attorney Suraj Kumar said he doesn't believe sanctions are necessary to achieve the goals his office is already working hard to achieve.

“You can call it sanctions,” Snow responded, “I'd just call it funds that are clearly necessary to complete the backlog given that we have not been able to resolve it in a reasonable way.”

In his previous order, Judge Snow ordered that the investigation be completed within 85 days, but the defendants have asked that the time frame be restored to the state's 180 days, which would allow more time for investigations and reduce the backlog of cases.

ACLU attorney Sebrina Shaw said extending the investigation period would “only move the goalposts for cosmetic change” and not lead to the actual improvement in investigation completion rates that the plaintiffs ultimately want.

Judge Snow said he was prepared to grant the defense's request, persuaded by Judge O'Grady's suggestion that the extension would reduce the backlog by 23 cases per month.

Shaw said he expects Snow to issue a ruling after Aug. 5. Shaw declined to release a copy of Snow's draft ruling.

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