There’s an understandable blind spot when it comes to a sheriff quoting his authority to engage in the rounding up people.  We’re busy, and can’t check everything every time someone spouts some numbers.  We expect someone in a high law enforcement position to have done his homework, know his business, demonstrate a reasonable sound level of accuracy. It’s understandable.

And it would be wrong, at least when it comes to larger than life, outside the box, unconstrained by the rules, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.  From the Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute :

That’s some string of numbers and letters, isn’t it?  Long enough to convince anyone that he’s done his homework and knows what he’s talking about.  Except he doesn’t.

He claimed the LII as the source of that law. There is no such sub-section in the US Code. No such text appears on our web site, or ever has — a fact easily discovered by reporters who went to our site.  Instead, the text in Arpaio’s presser was made up by an anti-immigration group in Connecticut.  It looks awfully official, though. 

Arpaio got nailed this time, exposing himself as an ignoramus and fool.  Bummer.  While it’s simple to check the Code to confirm the existence of the law he claimed provided him with the authority to take his county sheriff’s department and turn it into INS, the fact is that someone has to do it.  In this case, someone did, and thankfully this bum was exposed.

It’s hardly an infrequent experience for police to utilize commentary sources on the law rather than basic source, such as the law itself.  They read a paragraph that explains what someone thinks the law is, or too often, should be, and then apply it as if they’ve gotten it straight from the source.  They talk about it with certainty, and are absolutely clear that they are in the right.

The same can be said about case citations in briefs and motions, often with a short parenthetical after them putting the idea for which the case was cited into summary form to bolster the argument.  Do you take for granted that the case stands for the proposition claimed?  Do you check for distinguishing facts, or even reversal?  What about the existence of the decision at all? 

To a large extent, lawyers without a youthful cadre in the library ready to cite check upon command  try to shortcut the system by assuming that the other side didn’t lie, cheat or blow the citation.  Odds are that the citations, and even the brief summary, are accurate, and even when the odd variance is found, it’s inconsequential. The substantial chunks of time required to check them, one by one, string cite after string cite, could be better put to use on drafting one’s affirmative position, or ripping the logic from the reliance on ancient history.

But when you’re inclined to let the cites go, just play the odds and save your time to be put to better use elsewhere, remember Sheriff Joe Arpaio.  Sometimes, they just make this stuff up.  The only thing worse than being caught making something like this up is failing to catch it.