Slashdot Mirror
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.
Just have a directive that all city officials will be frisked at least once randomly each day. I'm sure once people see their public officials undergoing the same unwarranted searches they will be perfectly fine with it... assuming the public official don't quit first.
I've always wondered how something can be racist if it is true. I don't know what the percentages in NYC are of people who commit crimes in certain areas and what races those folks tend to be, but if 70% of the crimes in an area are committed by folks of a certain race, whatever that race may be, why does it not make sense to focus your suspicions while policing on people of that race?
Stop-and-frisk has one aim: Keep certain groups in fear and make sure they do not organize or start defending themselves by strongly implying that they have no rights and that their privacy can be invaded at any time and without any reason. It is a tried and true tactics, optimized by the Nazis and in Stalinism, but created much earlier.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Sorry for replying to my own post...
>> In my view, police-eye view cameras should be completely mandatory.
For clarification, the footage should be available to everyone as part of their own defense. If you are accused of a crime, the police must give you the footage in exactly the same way other evidence must be made available. It doesn't matter the crime, even failing to signal for a lane change, or whatever else. Along the lines of "pics or it didn't happen".
This should also include the entire transaction inside police 'interview' rooms. If they invite you inside for a little chat the entire video should be available to you and your lawyer. Many times police will coerce a 'confession' out of somebody through dubious means, the mandatory video would prevent false claims and help eliminate bad cops. Everybody wins.
Cameras are so cheap that police policy should be that all police interactions are recorded. If the cop claims he saw you do something then it should be on the glasses camera. If the video is missing from the record, the police shouldn't prosecute and juries should have a serious question of "Why did the cop not generate a recording of this? What is the cop trying to hide?"
This is different from a surveillance state. It is not "big brother watching you." It is watching big brother. As the NYT article linked to describes, when people fraudulently claim police abuse they give up after seeing the tape. On the other side, after police see their mistakes they will drop the cases because they know they'll lose in court, and become better and more honest cops.
Everybody wins.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
What's really sad about this is that the act of frisking anyone without any fact-based suspicion is not considered a violation of the constitution. It's only the racial bias in the ways the stops were performed that makes it illegal.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Very few crimes are being caught or prevented. Gun seizures are low. Weed busts have nothing to do with public safety.
NYC police chief Ray Kelly admitted to state senator Eric Adams in 2010 "[Kelly] stated that he targeted and focused on that group because he wanted to instil fear in them that every time that they left their homes they could be targeted by police". It is, in other words, deliberately intended as racist.
If you're interested in crime prevention and care equally about all citizens, you'll have to insist that police should spend more effort protecting blacks. That requires good relations with the community, to get tips about who's running the crack house and whose kid is at a turning point. The police won't get those good relations by stopping people at random and treating them like convicts or airline passengers.
they didn't limit it those conditions that the fourth amendment permits
They did in the original Terry v. Ohio case. The cop spent a fair amount of time watching 3 guys casing a store for a robbery, and when he stopped them he had reason to fear for his safety. He also limited the search to checking their coats for weapons (which he found). If you believe such situations happen over 1/2 million times a year in NYC though, I've got a bridge to sell you. "Reasonable suspicion" has been watered down to the cop felt like it, or he had to meet his quota (you know, the kind that doesn't exist). If Terry stops (the other name for stop-and-frisk) were limited to situations anything like the original case I, and I think most other people, wouldn't have a problem with it.
Laws have to be applied equally to every group. When 87% of the people stopped and frisked are young Black or Hispanic males would suggest that these two groups were singled out and that may be illegal.
Relying on raw numbers like that to draw assumptions is dangerous and may mistake the cause for the effect. You can get the same numbers from completely innnocent events- one example I can think of is if there was a crime wave in a particular area which the police are focusing on quelling. The police may, acting in good faith treat everyone in that area the same regardless of race but that area just so happens to be predominantly populated by Blacks and Hispanics. In those circumstances it would not be surprising if a larger number of the arrestees slant towards Blacks and Hispanics.
What I'm saying is that looking at pure percentages is deceptive if we don't take into account the context in which that figure was calculated or arrived at.
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 :-
The Judge also found as a fact that the stops were not effective. The uncontested facts are :-
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 :-
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.