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Posted on 08/12/2013 8:06:13 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A federal court handed a big defeat to Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York Police Department today, ruling that the controversial “stop and frisk” program infringed on constitutional rights. Judge Shira Scheindlin appointed a federal monitor to oversee the NYPD and “reform” the practice, although that might prove impossible:
A federal judge appointed an independent monitor Monday to oversee changes to the New York Police Department’s contentious policy known as stop, question and frisk, a significant judicial rebuke for what the mayor and police commissioner have defended as a life-saving, crime-fighting tool. …
Four men had sued saying they were unfairly targeted because of their race. There have been about 5 million stops during the past decade, mostly black and Hispanic men. Scheindlin issued her ruling after a 10-week bench trial for the class-action lawsuit that included testimony from top NYPD brass and a dozen people, 11 men and one woman, who said they were wrongly stopped because of their race.
Scheindlin’s opinion ruled that the practice violated both the Fourth and 14th Amendments. Coverage of the lawsuits have mainly focused on the 14th Amendment and the disparate attention received by minorities as a claim of racism. More than 80% of those searched have been black or Hispanic, according to NYPD’s records. However, the broader finding of a Fourth Amendment violation makes it almost impossible for New York to reconstitute “stop and frisk” in the future. The data from the police department, Scheindlin noted during the trial, shows how unreasonable the searches have been:
During the trial, Judge Scheindlin indicated her thinking when she noted that the majority of stops result in officers finding no wrong doing.
“A lot of people are being frisked or searched on suspicion of having a gun and nobody has a gun,” she said. Only 0.14 percent of stops have led to police finding guns. “So the point is suspicion turns out to be wrong in most cases.”
Here’s the ruling:
Ruling: Judge finds NYC stop-and-frisk policy violated rights.
CBS points out that the order doesn’t end “stop and frisk,” but how likely is reform?
Instead of ordering an end to the practice, however, U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin appointed an independent monitor to oversee changes to the policy.
Peter L. Zimroth, a onetime city lawyer and a former chief assistant district attorney, has been appointed as the monitor. In both roles, Zimroth worked closely with the NYPD, Scheindlin said.
The inclusion of the Fourth Amendment means that reform has to address more than the racial disparities in stops. The right to protection against unreasonable search and seizure in that part of the Bill of Rights means that police have to have either a warrant or reasonable suspicion in order to stop and search anyone — even in New York. Either police will have to drastically scale back their frisks, or the city will have to criminalize a lot more behavior for pretexts to them. With Nanny Bloomie in charge at least for the next few months, I know which way I’m betting this goes.
Ain’t right and wholly unconstitutional.
This is simply untrue.
Police have always been able to stop someone matching the description of a person who has committed a crime. And description is often made by citing tattoos, clothing, etc. - especially when gangs are involved.
The statistics bear this out, in that, by percentage and shear numbers very few people are found to be breaking a law.
By definition, there is only one person who actually meets the description of a perpetrator 100%. All others who match the description will not be the right one.
You're basically arguing that if the cops interview more than one suspect in an investigation, they are egregiously overstepping their bounds.
That's a surreal argument.
No poster is advocating racial discrimination.
That is a strawman you have invented.
The "War On "some" Drugs", the federal seat belt laws and the federally-promulgated DWI laws busted that.
Now, there is no right for anyone to travel anywhere, even on foot.
“The practice of frisking was a feature of the common law dating back to the 1700s.”
Of course Police frisk people. No one has said that there is anything wrong with frisking people. People who are reasonably expected of commiting a crime. Maybe they did “back in the 1700’s” they also did a lot of other things in the 1700’s that I would hope we wouldn’t approve of today.
“If you read the article, you will see that this judge’s argument is based solely on racial statistics and not on constitutional grounds.”
This is your quote. And you are saying the Judge is wrong. Therefore you must think the obvious racial bias/discrimination is OK. Now, you may think that there is a difference between “advocating” and just thinking such discrimination is OK is some kind of huge difference. I don’t.
And once again, I don’t think it’s OK to stop, question and frisk ANYONE without good cause, of any color, just going about their daily business. And that is exactly what is going on. And I realize that you think this is OK. I don’t.
“or is about to commit a felony or a penal law misdemeanor...”
For me, this is too much like pre-crime in Minority Report.
It’s entirely subjective.
They got caught having quotas for stop & frisks at the department level that were handed down from city hall. So, yes, the decision was made by the mayor, and yes, they targeted swathes of the population, having the number of searches they wanted planned out in advance.
Reeeeelly?
By your argument you are condoning wholesale stopping and frisking of anyone and everyone, which is what is going on here.
The police are not stopping people who fit a description of a particular person, which you advocate and I agree with.
They are stopping random people and that is the problem.
I have no problem with cops stopping people on a BOLO.
I was stopped once in Lancaster, PA. Cop pulled me and a colleague over. the LEO exited his car and at a quick pace rushed my car with his hand on his gun.
When he got to my vehicle he said “Oh!” with a puzzled look on his face.
I inquired as to why he stopped me, certain I hadn’t broken an traffic laws.
He responded that two black guys had just robbed a store and my vehicle fit the description.
My colleague and I bowled over with laughter for some weird irony in that we were quite White, Blue Eyed, and in suits.
I pitched to the cop we weren’t laughing at him and he had a bit of a grin on his face as well.
He then departed saying he needed to find those guys.
If that is what you are advocating, a certain exigency, then no problem.
However, if you look at the stats for stop and frisk, as applied in New York, then you would have to admit there is a real problem.
LEO can’t just randomly stop people and frisk them. Under what rubric or constitutional law do they have the imprimatur to circumvent my rights for the greater good or children?
Of the 5 million people hassled by NYC stop and frisk 80% were of a darker pigmentation. Weird, they only make up some 20% of the population. Weirder, they constitute 66% of the crimes but, that doesn’t account for the over sampling of the population.
Further damning and undermining their justification is a mere fraction, only 0.14%” of the stop and frisks resulted in finding a gun. Were they specifically looking for a particular person in 0.14% of all their cases, giving them an average of 100% for correctly suspecting those 0.14%????
I freaking doubt it.
They are not using “Probable Cause”. They are using “reasonable cause” which is a relative term and the article states as much “...Judge Scheindlin ... noted that the majority of stops result in officers finding no wrong doing”
And the money quote in the article:
The right to protection against unreasonable search and seizure in that part of the Bill of Rights means that police have to have either a warrant or reasonable suspicion in order to stop and search anyone — even in New York. Either police will have to drastically scale back their frisks, or the city will have to criminalize a lot more behavior for pretexts to them.
You are the one being surreal.
Those who typically push this stuff are the self proclaimed NYC elitists of Russian communist heritage and Harvard background; pro nanny statists such as Mayor Bloomberg; pro illegal immigration; always vehemently anti-gun; pro immigration as long as it corrupts the homogenous USA native born culture...............but apparently even they are not yet immune from our courts, even if they oddly get to run them.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/159709412/Ruling-Judge-finds-NYC-stop-and-frisk-policy-violated-rights
The following facts, discussed in greater detail below, are uncontested:
•Between January 2004 and June 2012, the NYPD conducted over 4.4 million Terry stops.
•The number of stops per year rose sharply from 314,000 in 2004 to a high of 686,000 in 2011.
•52% of all stops were followed by a protective frisk for weapons. A weapon was found after 1.5% of these frisks. In other words, in 98.5% of the 2.3 million frisks, no weapon was found.
•8% of all stops led to a search into the stopped person’s clothing, ostensibly based on the officer feeling an object during the frisk that he suspected to be a weapon,or immediately perceived to be contraband other than a weapon. In 9% of the searches, the felt object was in fact a weapon. 91% of the time, it was not. In 14% of these searches, the felt object was in fact contraband. 86% of the time it was not.
•6% of all stops resulted in an arrest, and 6% resulted in a summons. The remaining 88% of the 4.4 million stops resulted in no further law enforcement action.
•In 52% of the 4.4 million stops, the person stopped was black, in 31% the person was Hispanic, and in 10% the person was white.•In 2010, New York City’s resident population was roughly 23% black, 29%Hispanic, and 33% white.
•In 23% of the stops of blacks, and 24% of the stops of Hispanics, the officer recorded using force. The number for whites was 17%.•Weapons were seized in 1.0% of the stops of blacks, 1.1% of the stops of Hispanics, and 1.4% of the stops of whites.
•Contraband other than weapons was seized in 1.8% of the stops of blacks, 1.7%of the stops of Hispanics, and 2.3% of the stops of whites.
•Between 2004 and 2009, the percentage of stops where the officer failed to state a specific suspected crime rose from 1% to 36%.
” Give’em an inch and they will try to take over the whole world — a bit at a time.”
Yeah but if it saves only one life, freedom, liberty and our Constitution are just not that important of a trade off......Michael Bloomberg likely has said that.
Doesn’t look like it to me. Sheehag looked older.
Heh.
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