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However several legal groups, including one staffed by lawyers
who worked for President Barack Obama's administration, urged an
Arizona federal judge to deem the pardon an unconstitutional
overreach of executive authority.
Trump, a Republican who has promised to build a wall along the
U.S. border with Mexico, has praised Arpaio's crackdown on
undocumented immigrants in Arizona's Maricopa County which drew
condemnation from civil rights groups.
Arpaio was convicted in July of willfully violating a 2011
injunction barring his officers from stopping and detaining
Latino motorists solely on suspicion that they were in the
country illegally. He had not yet been sentenced when Trump
issued the pardon last month.
Arpaio asked U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton in Arizona to
vacate the verdict and all other orders in the case. The Justice
Department on Monday said his request was valid.
"The presidential pardon removes any punitive consequences that
would otherwise flow from [Arpaio's] non-final conviction and
therefore renders the case moot," it wrote in a court filing.
The Protect Democracy Project, an advocacy group that includes
the Obama administration lawyers, filed a separate brief urging
Bolton to first decide whether the pardon was constitutional
before dismissing the case.
It was joined by the Coalition to Preserve Protect and Defend, a
legal group consisting largely of government attorneys, and
other legal advocacy organizations. Trump's pardon will remove
the ability of the courts to enforce its own orders, the
coalition argued.
"The result would be an executive branch freed from the judicial
scrutiny required to assure compliance with the dictates of the
Bill of Rights and other constitutional safeguards," the group
wrote.
Arpaio campaigned for Trump in 2016 and investigated unfounded
claims that Obama was not born in the United States, a falsehood
that Trump also espoused for years.
"Sheriff Joe is a patriot. Sheriff Joe loves our country.
Sheriff Joe protected our borders," Trump said last month. "So I
stand by my pardon of Sheriff Joe, and I think the people of
Arizona, who really know him best, would agree with me."
(Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Andrew
Hay)
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