Sheriff Joe is not out of hot water.

[Jim Lane]

79. He already has been.

The question would be, not the pardon, but whether there's any actionable misconduct by him that hasn't already been litigated. I don't happen to know the answer.

Plaintiffs in civil cases against him aren't bound by what happened in a matter to which they weren't parties. The judge could decide that Arpaio was not in contempt, or a contempt citation could be reversed on appeal, r he could be found in contempt and pardoned, and none of those outcomes would preclude a civil plaintiff in a separate action from alleging and proving that Arpaio had violated the plaintiff's constitutional rights.

Arpaio, however, was a party and IS bound. In other words, a finding against him in this case could be used against him by the plaintiffs in another case. The reason for the distinction is the general rule that you can't be bound by a result unless you had a full and fair opportunity to contest it.

The pardon may affect the use that other parties could make of a finding against Arpaio. His full and fair opportunity to contest a finding includes his right of appeal. If he's been pardoned, then arguably he's no longer aggrieved by the contempt finding, therefore he can't appeal it, therefore he hasn't had full opportunity to contest the finding, therefore he's not bound by it, therefore in a separate case he's still able to argue that this judge was wrong. Is that a sound argument? Does it depend on whether he takes some step to "accept" the pardon? I don't know enough about this area of law to even hazard a guess at those questions.