Perp walk? Blame Giuliani (even though it's been around since 1920s)

Reuters ^ | 05/19/11 | Leigh Jones Leigh Jones

[nhwingut]

NEW YORK (Reuters) – How did the perp walk get such a bad rap? When IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was pictured, sweaty and exhausted-looking late Sunday night outside the New York Police Department's Special Victims Unit, some denounced the practice as downright undemocratic. Former French Justice Minister Elisabeth Guigou called the pre-trial publicity "absolutely sickening." And another former French justice minister, Robert Badinter, said the IMF chief had been subjected to "death by media."

[wideawake]

Yet the French newspapers are happy to publish the name and address of the victim.

They should have perp walked him from the 28th down to the Tombs.

[nhwingut]

BTW. I’m sure Rooters would be complaining about a ‘perp walk’ if it were a conservative politician. /s

[yldstrk]

Leave the perp walks for the convicted. Sometimes even convictions are wrong.

[Puppage]

Former French Justice Minister Elisabeth Guigou called the pre-trial publicity "absolutely sickening."

I don't give a CRAP what the french think. How long did it take them to turn over Ira Einhorn?

[Alberta's Child]

The media's description of a "perp walk" does not even match what I've always understood to be a perp walk -- and what was made famous during Giuliani's tenure as a Federal prosecutor.

Walking a suspect out of a police facility in handcuffs is not exactly a "perp walk" in the intended use of the term. The "perp walk" referred to from Giuliani's past refers to the act of arresting a suspect at his home or place of business in a media circus (maybe even with the media having been notified beforehand to help generate more publicity) . . . and walking him out of his home or business through a horde of reporters and cameras.

The article does, however, point out exactly why the original "perp walk" from Giuliani's days as a prosecutor was so disgraceful:

Indeed, charges against Wigton, were dropped 3 1/2 months after they were made. An investigation continued for another 2 1/2 years before it was abandoned. He died in 2008 at age 77.

You can be sure there were no prosecutors there to apologize to Wigton or calling a press conference announcing the end of the investigation.

[Grut]

A ‘perp walk’ is pure government Theater and ought to be discouraged for that reason alone. My suggestion is that anyone subjected to one, who is later cleared or has the case dropped, should be allowed to remove the District Attorney’s pants in public.

[Larry381]

At one time everyone arrested in New York City was brought to a facility in downtown Manhattan called Central Booking. It was attached to the old “Tombs” prison and the name ‘perp walk’ came about when every morning people arrested the night (or day) before were unloaded from paddy wagons and marched into that facility for questioning, fingerprinting and mug shots. Today it’s all different.

[The_Reader_David]

Leave the perp walks for the convicted. Sometimes even convictions are wrong.

I agree. Objecting to "perp walks" for those the state has only accused of crimes (unlike naming the alleged victim in cases involving allegations of sex crimes, their agricultural policy, and much of their foreign policy) is something the French get right: it does contradict the presumption of innocence by creating pre-trial publicity in which the accused in portrayed as the perpetrator of a crime.