Maricopa County is a place where first-time DUI offenders can find themselves facing thirty years in prison, where parents can find themselves woken up in the middle of the night, their bedroom filled with armed men and drawn guns, their home being invaded after the County Attorney suspects their child of viewing porn. The sheriff’s challenger in the last election woke up one morning to find himself defending allegations that he had raped his mother. And, the prior County Attorney, a Conservative Republican, ran television ads asking people to vote for the Democratic challenger of the existing County Attorney.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio and County Attorney Andrew Thomas are the two most controversial lawmen in the United States today. They both reside in Maricopa County, Arizona, where their respective departments are fraught with lawsuits and investigations of wrongdoing — all at taxpayer expense. Yet they remain defiant that their ultra-rightwing form of Western justice is what the American people want.

This story takes you through the heart-wrenching experience of one suburban family’s tragic encounter with Maricopa County justice soon after having their second baby. It shows how the Maricopa County Prosecutor abuses mandatory minimum sentencing to manufacture violent criminals out of ordinary citizens, and it exposes the dangerous truth about Sheriff Arpaio’s
infamous Tent City found nowhere else.