"Our system of laws is administered by rational human beings. It has always been a challenge to the legal system to interact with the irrational."
- Ninth Circuit Judge John T. Noonan writing for the majority in Wagner v. County of Maricopa
(701 F.3d 593 (9th Cir. 2012)), which held that the trial judge wrongfully barred evidence supporting a civil rights claim brought by the surviving family of a mentally impaired prisoner. The family contended that the deceased man was treated with deliberate indifference to his medical needs when deputies, under Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joseph Arpaio, forcefully undressed the inmate and made him wear pink underwear as a punishment.
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