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NYPD Stop and Frisk Ruled Unconstitutional

Gaius46

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From the NY Times a couple of days ago

I haven't read the opinion yet but according to the article the judge came down pretty hard on the Bloomberg administration and the Police department.
All I can say is it's about time.



A federal judge ruled on Monday that the stop-and-frisk tactics of the New York Police Department violated the constitutional rights of minorities in the city, repudiating a major element in the Bloomberg administration’s crime-fighting legacy.

The use of police stops has been widely cited by city officials as a linchpin of New York’s success story in seeing murders and major crimes fall to historic lows. The police say the practice has saved the lives of thousands of young black and Hispanic men by removing thousands of guns from the streets.

But the judge, Shira A. Scheindlin, found that the Police Department resorted to a “policy of indirect racial profiling” as it increased the number of stops in minority communities. That has led to officers’ routinely stopping “blacks and Hispanics who would not have been stopped if they were white.”

The judge called for a federal monitor to oversee broad reforms, including the use of body-worn cameras for some patrol officers, though she was “not ordering an end to the practice of stop-and-frisk.”

In her 195-page decision, Judge Scheindlin concluded that the stops, which soared in number over the last decade as crime continued to decline, demonstrated a widespread disregard for the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government, as well as the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg angrily accused the judge of deliberately denying the city “a fair trial” and said the city would file an appeal.

Striking a defiant tone, Mr. Bloomberg said, “You’re not going to see any change in tactics overnight.” He said he hoped the appeal process would allow the current stop-and-frisk practices to continue through the end of his administration because “I wouldn’t want to be responsible for a lot of people dying.”

She noted that officers routinely stopped people partly on the basis of “furtive movements,” a category that officers have testified might encompass any of the following: being fidgety, changing directions, walking in a certain way, grabbing at a pocket or looking over one’s shoulder.

“If officers believe that the behavior described above constitutes furtive movement that justifies a stop, then it is no surprise that stops so rarely produce evidence of criminal activity,” Judge Scheindlin wrote.

She found that in their zeal to identify concealed weapons, officers sometimes stopped people on the grounds that the officer observed a bulge in the person’s pocket; often it turned out that the bulge was caused not by a gun but by a wallet.

“The outline of a commonly carried object such as a wallet or cellphone does not justify a stop or frisk, nor does feeling such an object during a frisk justify a search,” she ruled.

She emphasized what she called the “human toll of unconstitutional stops,” noting that some of the plaintiffs testified that their encounters with the police left them feeling that they did not belong in certain areas of the city. She characterized each stop as “a demeaning and humiliating experience.”

“No one should live in fear of being stopped whenever he leaves his home to go about the activities of daily life,” she wrote.

One of the plaintiffs in the case, Lalit Clarkson, 31, a union organizer, said after the ruling that “the stop-and-frisk policy criminalizes a whole race and community of people, just for going to work, going to get some food, going on a train to go downtown.”

The decision, he said, represents the legal system’s validation of what the black community has known for a long time: that the stop-and-frisk tactics rely on racial profiling.

“What we know, in our community, to be the truth, has never before gone through a massive legal process” and been “shown, point by point, step by step” to be true, he said.

The judge’s ruling, in Floyd v. City of New York, a 2008 class-action lawsuit that represents the broadest legal challenge to the department’s practices, follows a two-month nonjury trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan earlier this year. Her decision cites testimony of about a dozen black or biracial men and one woman who described being stopped, as well as the conclusions of statistical experts who studied police paperwork describing some 4.43 million stops between 2004 and the middle of 2012.

But the stops were not the end of the problem, Judge Scheindlin found. After officers stopped people, they often conducted frisks for weapons, or searched the subjects’ pockets for contraband, like drugs, without any legal grounds for doing so. Also, she found that during police stops, blacks and Hispanics “were more likely to be subjected to the use of force than whites, despite the fact that whites are more likely to be found with weapons or contraband.”

About 83 percent of the stops between 2004 and 2012 involved blacks and Hispanics, even though those two demographics make up just slightly more than 50 percent of the city’s residents. Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Kelly have explained that disparity by saying it mirrored the disproportionate percentage of crimes committed by young minority men. But Judge Scheindlin dismissed the Police Department’s rationale.

“This might be a valid comparison if the people stopped were criminals,” she wrote, explaining that there was significant evidence that the people being stopped were not criminals. “To the contrary, nearly 90 percent of the people stopped are released without the officer finding any basis for a summons or arrest.”

Rather, Judge Scheindlin found, the stops overwhelmingly involved minority men because police commanders had come to see them as “the right people” to stop.

“It is impermissible to subject all members of a racially defined group to heightened police enforcement because some members of that group are criminals,” she wrote.

Mr. Bloomberg pledged that lawyers for the city, in appealing to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, would argue that the judge was biased against the police. As evidence, he cited the fact that the judge, who has overseen numerous stop-and-frisk cases over the last decade, had encouraged the plaintiffs to steer the Floyd case into her courtroom by marking it as related to an earlier case she had overseen.

The mayor said the judge did “not understand how policing works” and had misinterpreted what the Constitution allowed.



The judge found that for much of the last decade, patrol officers had stopped innocent people without any objective reason to suspect them of wrongdoing. But her criticism went beyond the conduct of police officers.

“I also conclude that the city’s highest officials have turned a blind eye to the evidence that officers are conducting stops in a racially discriminatory manner,” she wrote, citing statements that Mr. Bloomberg and the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, have made in defending the policy.

Judge Scheindlin ordered a number of remedies, including a pilot program in which officers in at least five precincts across the city will wear cameras on their bodies to record street encounters. She also ordered a “joint remedial process” — in essence, a series of community meetings — to solicit public comments on how to reform the department’s tactics.

The judge named Peter L. Zimroth, a partner in Arnold & Porter L.L.P., and a former corporation counsel and prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, to monitor the Police Department’s compliance with the United States Constitution. The installation of a monitor will leave the department under a degree of judicial control that is certain to shape the policing strategies under the next mayor.

Judge Scheindlin’s decision grapples with the legacy of Terry v. Ohio, a 1968 ruling by the Supreme Court, which held that stopping and frisking was constitutionally permissible under certain conditions. But she said that changes to the way the New York Police Department employed the practice were needed to ensure that the street stops were carried out in a manner that “protects the rights and liberties of all New Yorkers, while still providing much needed police protection.”

The judge found that the New York police were too quick to deem suspicious behavior that was perfectly innocent, in effect watering down the legal standard required for a stop.

“Blacks are likely targeted for stops based on a lesser degree of objectively founded suspicion than whites,” she wrote.
 
Yep, it's UnConstitutional alright.

But the down side is New Yorkers are now going to be subjected to a higher crime rate.

If it were up to me, and to keep it Constitutional, stop " stop and frisk" but allow New Yorkers to Conceal Carry.

That way their on equal footing with the criminals that chose to break the law.
 
The SCOTUS has upheld these type searches before in TERRY v. OHIO, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). (FindLaw | Cases and Codes)

Ehhh..that case was a bit more nuanced. The case dealt with "unreasonable" but didn't give a blank check to stopping an frisking on a large scale level.
 
Yep, it's UnConstitutional alright.

But the down side is New Yorkers are now going to be subjected to a higher crime rate.

If it were up to me, and to keep it Constitutional, stop " stop and frisk" but allow New Yorkers to Conceal Carry.

That way their on equal footing with the criminals that chose to break the law.

Crime rates have been dropping in New York (and the rest of the country) for decades. It's not like crime rates dropped at a faster rate than they dropped pre-stop and frisk.

I also want to point out...I wonder how many individuals walking in certain neighborhoods were put in jail or charged for carrying small amounts of say marijuana while people in other neighborhoods weren't...
 
Ehhh..that case was a bit more nuanced. The case dealt with "unreasonable" but didn't give a blank check to stopping an frisking on a large scale level.

If police are encountering people, they have a right to conduct Terry searches for their own protection. That some do not does not mean that those who do are legally wrong. While I am conflicted on the politics of it, the law is not that nuanced--they can do it.
 
If police are encountering people, they have a right to conduct Terry searches for their own protection. That some do not does not mean that those who do are legally wrong. While I am conflicted on the politics of it, the law is not that nuanced--they can do it.

At question is the initial justification for the stop. Not the police' ability to do a protective pat down. Without a reasonable suspicion the stop itself is unconstitutional.
 
If police are encountering people, they have a right to conduct Terry searches for their own protection. That some do not does not mean that those who do are legally wrong. While I am conflicted on the politics of it, the law is not that nuanced--they can do it.

As Gaius mentioned...it's about justification for a pat down. Walking down a street doesn't make you a target or reasonable case for a pat down. In the case mentioned the individuals behavior warranted a pat down. They were casing a place and exhibited specific behavior.
 
Crime rates have been dropping in New York (and the rest of the country) for decades. It's not like crime rates dropped at a faster rate than they dropped pre-stop and frisk.

I also want to point out...I wonder how many individuals walking in certain neighborhoods were put in jail or charged for carrying small amounts of say marijuana while people in other neighborhoods weren't...

The Bloomberg administration conveniently forgets this when it points to stop and frisk and the shrinking crime rates in NYC. the city has not put forth one single bit of evidence to prove causation.

4.4 million people have been stopped and frisked since 2002 - almost half a million a year on average. Some 90% were sent on their way. The majority of the rest were typically small time drug busts - and in the case of marijuana (the most typical drug bust) the NYPD brass has specifically ordered patrol officers to stop altogether (that's a topic for another post) and by all accounts the cop on the street has refused to.
 
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At question is the initial justification for the stop. Not the police' ability to do a protective pat down. Without a reasonable suspicion the stop itself is unconstitutional.

As Gaius mentioned...it's about justification for a pat down. Walking down a street doesn't make you a target or reasonable case for a pat down. In the case mentioned the individuals behavior warranted a pat down. They were casing a place and exhibited specific behavior.

So you think that officers on foot have no legal justification to interact with others on the street? That is the only circumstance in which Terry would not allow them to do a cursory pat down. The case isn't about whether they can do it, but whether they can selectively do it to black people as opposed to similarly situated white people in such a manner as that it creates a de facto public policy against black people :2wave:
 
If police are encountering people, they have a right to conduct Terry searches for their own protection. That some do not does not mean that those who do are legally wrong. While I am conflicted on the politics of it, the law is not that nuanced--they can do it.


Well, the SCOTUS was wrong on that ruling too. They get it wrong sometimes. Bush v Gore!
 
So you think that officers on foot have no legal justification to interact with others on the street? That is the only circumstance in which Terry would not allow them to do a cursory pat down. The case isn't about whether they can do it, but whether they can selectively do it to black people as opposed to similarly situated white people in such a manner as that it creates a de facto public policy against black people :2wave:

"Interaction" and "stop" are not the same thing. the police do not have the right to pat you down without stopping you. And to stop you the must have reasonable suspicion.

And the judge found both indirect racial profiling and large scale disregard of the 4th amendment so her decision was not solely about race.
 
So you think that officers on foot have no legal justification to interact with others on the street? That is the only circumstance in which Terry would not allow them to do a cursory pat down. The case isn't about whether they can do it, but whether they can selectively do it to black people as opposed to similarly situated white people in such a manner as that it creates a de facto public policy against black people :2wave:

The supreme court ruled in the Terry case that a police officer "has reason to believe that he is dealing with an armed and dangerous individuals". That the individual "has commited, is commiting, or is about to commit a crime". That's the reason they are required to do a write up and can will put down "suspect looked over shoulder constantly" "suspect followed person for period of time". T
 
From the NY Times a couple of days ago

I haven't read the opinion yet but according to the article the judge came down pretty hard on the Bloomberg administration and the Police department.
All I can say is it's about time.

it'll be constitutional if Scalia et al. get it ...
 
Well, the SCOTUS was wrong on that ruling too. They get it wrong sometimes. Bush v Gore!

wrong does not make it invalid. the law is what it is.
 
"Interaction" and "stop" are not the same thing. the police do not have the right to pat you down without stopping you. And to stop you the must have reasonable suspicion.

And the judge found both indirect racial profiling and large scale disregard of the 4th amendment so her decision was not solely about race.

The supreme court ruled in the Terry case that a police officer "has reason to believe that he is dealing with an armed and dangerous individuals". That the individual "has commited, is commiting, or is about to commit a crime". That's the reason they are required to do a write up and can will put down "suspect looked over shoulder constantly" "suspect followed person for period of time". T

There has been a long line of disturbing search and seizure case law since Terry due to the war on drugs not wanting to let any drug dealer get off. If this goes to the SCOTUS, you will see I am right in that the searches will be deemed legal whether I agree with them or not.
 
wrong does not make it invalid. the law is what it is.


Oh sure, I realize that. They gave us Bush, they were wrong, Sandra Day O'Conner has as much as admitted so, but we still had his sorry ass for eight years, lol.
 
There has been a long line of disturbing search and seizure case law since Terry due to the war on drugs not wanting to let any drug dealer get off. If this goes to the SCOTUS, you will see I am right in that the searches will be deemed legal whether I agree with them or not.

I really you're wrong about that. The 4th is verging on becoming a fig leaf of a protection as it is.
 
From the NY Times a couple of days ago

I haven't read the opinion yet but according to the article the judge came down pretty hard on the Bloomberg administration and the Police department.
All I can say is it's about time.

Yes, it IS about time. That law was declared unconstitutional because it was racist as hell.
 
From the NY Times a couple of days ago

I haven't read the opinion yet but according to the article the judge came down pretty hard on the Bloomberg administration and the Police department.
All I can say is it's about time.
This law is a blatant violation of the 4th amendment. It should have been struck down when it was first created.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
 
From the NY Times a couple of days ago

I haven't read the opinion yet but according to the article the judge came down pretty hard on the Bloomberg administration and the Police department.
All I can say is it's about time.

Yes, it's about time that the rate at which young black men are being murdered picked up again. This will help a great deal. Congratulations.

However, the judge didn't strike down stop and frisk. (Especially since the SCOTUS has upheld the practice.) She just wants to see more white people and little old ladies frisked, I guess.

The evidence that police are frisking people in a "racially discriminatory" manner is that more blacks are stopped, of course. But then more blacks are involved in crime, a fact to which the judge is willfully blind.

I'd say that the blood of young men will be on her hands, but I don't think her ruling will survive appeal.
 
At question is the initial justification for the stop. Not the police' ability to do a protective pat down. Without a reasonable suspicion the stop itself is unconstitutional.
You're so right.

First, there is no stop and frisk "law" per se. Stop and question is a legal procedure, not a law and not even a NYC police. So the whole concept of bringing it before a judge is silly.
If a police officer has reasonable suspicion that someone did, is or will engage in a crime he can stop and question the suspect. If he feels there is a specific threat from a weapon or other concealed hazard, he can pat him down to protect himself. Anything less than that, the police officer is violating the law.
A police officer's right to do this doesn't come from NYC policy, it comes from the Constitution and the NYS Criminal Procedure Law.

So what did the judge's ruling accomplish?
Stated that it's illegal for the police to violate the correct procedure? That was already known.
State that the police can't conduct legal stop-and-question stops? No, the judge can't do that.

So what exactly was the point of all of this?
 
Yes, it's about time that the rate at which young black men are being murdered picked up again. This will help a great deal. Congratulations.

However, the judge didn't strike down stop and frisk. (Especially since the SCOTUS has upheld the practice.) She just wants to see more white people and little old ladies frisked, I guess.

The evidence that police are frisking people in a "racially discriminatory" manner is that more blacks are stopped, of course. But then more blacks are involved in crime, a fact to which the judge is willfully blind.

I'd say that the blood of young men will be on her hands, but I don't think her ruling will survive appeal.

Has there been one shred of evidence presented anywhere pointing to stop and frisk as having played any part in the reduction in crime because I sure as hell haven't seen it.

And even if there is that does not justify the technique which the judge in fact did called Unconstitutional in its implementation in New York.

In one of the greater ironies here police commissioner Ray Kelly is crowing about the fact the
Judge found that 10 of the 19 specific stops she looked at were Constitutional. I guess Mr Kelly doesn't realize that that means that just under half the stops were not constitutional. Extrapolate that out to the 4.5 million stops the police have made and you get millions of 4th amendment violations.

That's why she stated in her opinion that the NYPDs violations of the 4th were widespread. By any measure that is a piss poor record.
 
Has there been one shred of evidence presented anywhere pointing to stop and frisk as having played any part in the reduction in crime because I sure as hell haven't seen it.

Of course it has reduced murders. Why do you want to obfuscate the issue by denying the obvious? Is your ideology that important to you, that you will sacrifice lives to it?

But it's much ado about not much, because this judge will have scorn poured on her head by the appeals court.
 
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