DAMNED IF WE DO AND DAMNED IF WE DON'T

Below is part of a discussion between Pima County Arizona Sheriff Clarence Dupnik and Keith Olbermann on Countdown:

DUPNIK: But my objection to the state law that was enacted by the governor and the legislator is twofold.

One, I believe it's unconstitutional.

I don't think, as you pointed out earlier in this show, that the states have the authority to pre-empt federal government when it comes to immigration issues.

And second of all, I think it's going to be held unconstitutional on the basis of the key phrase in the bill that says we can stop them and ask them for papers and so forth on reasonable suspicion.

Now, I've been a cop for 52 years.

I'm not sure what reasonable suspicion means, and I suspect that's going to be constitutionally vague.

The third thing is, why would I take the hundreds of people that we arrest regularly and put them in the local jail and subject them to the local criminal justice system and then send the local taxpayers a huge bill for doing this when I -- all we have to do is what we've been doing all along and turn them over to the border patrol?


OLBERMANN: Why was this bill enacted in Arizona?


DUPNIK: I think it was enacted in Arizona to make the legislature feel good, possibly to deflect some of the attention they get on the poor management, especially of financial issues in this state.

They've done a horrible job, and second of all, I think it's just racist.


OLBERMANN: To that point, the governor and state Senator Pearce both say the law is written specifically to prevent racial profiling and will not lead to racism.

I gather from your last statement that you have reasons to believe that's not true.

What are they?


DUPNIK: Let me tell you, they say that the law that they crafted mirrors the federal law, and in a lot of respects it does.

With the couple of exceptions.

One is this reasonable suspicion business, and the other, they have set up the police in an impossible situation.

On one hand, we get sued by people whom we stop who we would stop, this happens a great deal in another county north of here.

For racial profiling.

They have put a clause in this bill that I don't think anybody has looked at that says any citizen in this state can file a lawsuit against any law enforcement official that doesn't enforce this law.

So now we're damned if we do and we're damned if we don't....

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Sheriff Dupnik speaks good sense. He and his employees will have to do the actual work, and he knows what the law will bring on for him and his officers and for the citizens of Arizona who, by the way, approve the law by 70% percentage points.