Federal Judge Rules NYC "Stop and Frisk" Violated Rights

In a mixed ruling for Fourth Amendment rights, a federal judge today ruled that NYC's Stop-and-Frisk program violated constitutional rights due to disproportionately targeting minorities. However, despite the program being unconstitutional in its current form, it will not stop. From the New York Times: " Judge Scheindlin also ordered a number of other remedies, including a pilot program in which officers in at least five precincts across the city will wear body-worn cameras in an effort to record street encounters. She also ordered a 'joint remedial process' — in essence, a series of community meetings — to solicit public input on how to reform stop-and-frisk. ... The Supreme Court had long ago ruled that stop-and-frisks were constitutionally permissible under certain conditions, and Judge Scheindlin stressed that she was 'not ordering an end to the practice.' But she said that changes 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 as suspicious behavior that was perfectly innocent, in effect watering down the legal standard required for a stop. " The ruling itself (PDF). Bloomberg is furious about the decision, and the city, naturally, intends to appeal.

Comments

Re:What's really sad

[__aaltlg1547]

Read the opinion, not the press release. Section B concerns the 4th Amendment and states that stops must be based on reasonable suspicion. Section C concerns the fact that race was substituted for reasonable suspicion.

Re: I don't understand

[TubeSteak]

So yeah, reality shows a pretty objective picture, its just that people dont want the truth, they want to show that cops and the government are racist institutions as justifications for doing whatever it is people want to do.

Either you haven't looked very hard for data, or you've done an interesting job cherry picking information to reflect the reality you want to portray.
Here's the results of what I found, it took all of like 5 minutes of googling to find it, so basically anyone with a strong opinion on the subject supporting the NY Police is being intellectually dishonest.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/05/22/2046451/white-people-stopped-by-new-york-police-are-more-likely-to-have-guns-or-drugs-than-minorities/

• The likelihood a stop of an African American New Yorker yielded a weapon was half that of white New Yorkers stopped. The NYPD uncovered a weapon in one out every 49 stops of white New Yorkers. By contrast, it took the Department 71 stops of Latinos and 93 stops of African Americans to find a weapon.
• The likelihood a stop of an African American New Yorker yielded contraband was one-third less than that of white New Yorkers stopped. The NYPD uncovered contraband in one out every 43 stops of white New Yorkers. By contrast, it took the Department 57 stops of Latinos and 61 stops of African Americans to find contraband.

It's unlikely that the appropriate lesson to take from these findings is that stops of white people should increase because they are more likely to carry weapons and drugs. Rather, they suggest that police are excessively targeting minorities. Officers may be netting more successful stops of white New Yorkers because they are only likely to stop a white person when they actually suspect that person of committing a crime

89% of stops result in no action.
That's hundreds of thousands of people who are harassed by the NYPD for no reason other than being young and not-white.

Judge says your argument is a logical fallacy

[Camael]

And I think the Judge was right. If you read the Judgment, your argument is the same one the NYC police made.

Right at the start, the Judge said that even if racial profiling is effective at combating crime, being unconstitutional it cannot be used :-

I emphasize at the outset, as I have throughout the litigation, that this case is not about the effectiveness of stop and frisk in deterring or combating crime. This Court’s mandate is solely to judge the constitutionality of police behavior, not its effectiveness as a law enforcement tool. Many police practices may be useful for fighting crime — preventive detention or coerced confessions, for example — but because they are unconstitutional they cannot be used, no matter how effective.

The Judge also found as a fact that the stops were not effective. The uncontested facts are :-

Between January 2004 and June 2012, the NYPD conducted over 4.4 million Terry stops.

In 98.5% of the 2.3 million stops where frisks for weapons were conducted, no weapon was found.

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.

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.

The key point to note is that although whites were stopped with much less frequency than blacks or Hispanics, the percentage of them found to be carrying weapons or contraband were higher compared to blacks or Hispanics. So you can't even make the argument that black or Hispanics ought to be stopped more than whites because they were more likely to carry weapons or contraband, because this is untrue.

The Judge also disagreed that it was fair to look at crime rates :-

The City and its highest officials believe that blacks and Hispanics should be stopped at the same rate as their proportion of the local criminal suspect population. But this reasoning is flawed because the stopped population is overwhelmingly innocent — not criminal. There is no basis for assuming that an innocent population shares the same characteristics as the criminal suspect population in the same area.

To put it in simple terms, if you happen to be black or Hispanic and have been clean all your life, you wouldn't like it if you were stopped simply because you are black or Hispanic.

My gut reaction was originally the same as you, but having read the judgment in more detail I cannot say that the decision was wrong or unjust. I hope Bloomberg will at least read the same judgment.

 

Re:You need to interpret figures based on context

[nbauman]

Read the memorandum in the case.

Many of those stops were on Broadway. I've walked down those very same streets many times. I'm white and I've never been stopped, even when I was walking home late at night. Black guys get stopped.

The thing that impressed me about their testimony is that they sound like really cool guys. They're black law students, medical students, teachers, social workers, etc. They're getting hassled by cops all the time, they're tired of it, and they're responding in reasonable ways. The cops are unreasonably arbitrary and rude, and according to the judge's decision, the cops repeatedly broke the law. These guys filed protests with the police department, complained to the ACLU, and finally took the cops to court. They've got balls. They're complaining that they're being singled out all the time because they're black, and if you read the court documents, they made a pretty good argument.

DAVID FLOYD, et al. vs. THE CITY OF NEW YORK,
David Floyd, et al. vs. The City of New York.

OPINION AND ORDER
08 Civ. 1034 (SAS)
Case 1:08-cv-01034-SAS-HBP Document 373
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/08/12/nyregion/stop-and-frisk-decision.html
http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/750446/stop-and-frisk-memoranda.pdf