Due To Racial Profiling, Many Cannabis Busts May Be Overturned

[greenbuddha]

  Stop & Frisk Practice Violated Rights, Judge Rules Posted by CN Staff on August 12, 2013 at 08:37:18 PT
By Joseph Goldstein 
Source: New York Times 

New York -- In a repudiation of a major element in the Bloomberg administration’s crime-fighting legacy, a federal judge has found that the stop-and-frisk tactics of the New York Police Department violated the constitutional rights of minorities in New York, and called for a federal monitor to oversee broad reforms.

In a decision issued on Monday, the judge, Shira A. Scheindlin, ruled that police officers have for years been systematically stopping innocent people in the street without any objective reason to suspect them of wrongdoing. Officers often frisked these people, usually young minority men, for weapons or searched their pockets for contraband, like drugs, before letting them go, according to the 195-page decision.

These stop-and-frisk episodes, 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, according to the ruling. It also found violations with the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

Judge Scheindlin found that the city “adopted a policy of indirect racial profiling by targeting racially defined groups for stops based on local crime suspect data.” She rejected the city’s arguments that more stops happened in minority neighborhoods solely because those happened to have high-crime rates.

“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.

Noting that the Supreme Court had long ago ruled that stop-and-frisks were constitutionally permissible under certain conditions, the judge stressed that she was “not ordering an end to the practice of stop-and-frisk. The purpose of the remedies addressed in this opinion is to ensure that the practice is carried out in a manner that protects the rights and liberties of all New Yorkers, while still providing much needed police protection.”

City officials did not immediately comment on the ruling, or on whether they planned to appeal. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg scheduled a news conference at 1 p.m. to discuss the decision.

To fix the constitutional violations, the judge designated an outside lawyer, Peter L. Zimroth, to monitor the Police Department’s compliance with the Constitution.

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 decision to install Mr. Zimroth, a partner in the New York office of Arnold & Porter, LLP, and a former corporation counsel and prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, will leave the department under a degree of judicial control that is certain to shape the policing strategies under the next mayor.

Relying on a complex statistical analysis presented at trial, Judge Scheindlin found that the racial composition of a census tract played a role in predicting how many stops would occur.

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 cities. 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,” the judge wrote. During police stops, she found, 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.”

The ruling, in Floyd v. City of New York, follows a two-month nonjury trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan earlier this year over the department’s stop-and-frisk practices.

Judge Scheindlin heard testimony from about a dozen black or biracial men and a woman who described being stopped, and she heard from statistical experts who offered their conclusions based on police paperwork describing some 4.43 million stops between 2004 and mid-2012. Numerous police officers and commanders testified as well, typically defending the legality of stops and saying they were made only when officers reasonably suspected criminality was afoot.

While the Supreme Court has long recognized the right of police officers to briefly stop and investigate people who are behaving suspiciously, Judge Scheindlin found that the New York police had overstepped that authority. She found that officers were too quick to deem as 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.

She noted that about 88 percent of the stops result in the police letting the person go without an arrest or ticket, a percentage so high, she said, that it suggests there was not a credible suspicion to suspect the person of criminality in the first place.

Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Joseph Goldstein
Published: August 12, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
URL: http://drugsense.org/url/AQRXuNHi

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[solabeirtan]

This article is not about Cannabis or Mj. It is about Racial Profiling.

Source: New York Times (NY)

Author: Joseph Goldstein

Published: August 12, 2013

Copyright: 2013 The New York Times Company

Contact: letters@nytimes.com

Website: http://www.nytimes.com/

URL: http://drugsense.org/url/AQRXuNHi

CannabisNews Justice Archives

http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/justice.shtml

 

 

Home    Comment    Email    Register    Recent Comments    Help   

Edited August 12, 2013 by solabeirtan

[greenbuddha]

This article is not about Cannabis or Mj. It is about Racial Profiling.

 

People, most often minorities, were made to turn out their pockets and when cannabis fell out they were busted for it as a 'public display'.

 

In many cases (if you've been following this issue in New York) these busts were found to be 'illegal arrests'... which were brought about through 'racial profiling'.  

 

Two things... illegal cannabis busts AS WELL AS 'racial profiling' should not be occurring...  wouldn't you agree???

 

This judge's ruling means many cannabis busts will be overturned... at least in New York.

 

Have a very nice evening.

[solabeirtan]

People, most often minorities, were made to turn out their pockets and when cannabis fell out they were busted for it as a 'public display'.

 

In many cases (if you've been following this issue in New York) these busts were found to be 'illegal arrests'... which were brought about through 'racial profiling'.  

 

Two things... illegal cannabis busts AS WELL AS 'racial profiling' should not be occurring...  wouldn't you agree???

 

This judges ruling means many cannabis busts will be overturned... at least in New York.

 

Have a very nice evening.

Thanks for taking the time to clarify your position. I don't live in NY, but I was aware of their S&F Police Policy.

 

MPO: Cannabis for adults should have never been illegal. However thats neither here nor there...

 

If the ruling overturns 'illegal' cannabis busts, I hope you keep us informed of the developements.

Racial Discrimination is much harder to make a case for as well as much more dispicable. [mpo] For that I applaud this Judges courage and sense of justice as she has made this world a little better place for everyone. ...peace

 

hope you are enjoying the evening as well

[Chauncy Gardner]

I am pretty sure that the cops used the stop and frisk law to exact punitive retribution on some "uppity" blacks for just looking at the cops wrong. We all know the police have the power to make your life h-e-l-l if they take umbrage at your "attitude".

 

We will not be free again in this country until we can call cops a-holes to their face and not receive some form of retribution for it.

 

I am anxiously awaiting our return to that time. We have given them way more power than they need or deserve.

[solabeirtan]

The Police are at the extremities of our Judicial System.

They make very easy marks as the heavily armed & subsidized drones of our Administration.

[Chauncy Gardner]

The Police are at the extremities of our Judicial System.

They make very easy marks as the heavily armed & subsidized drones of our Administration.

 

True. We need to reign in our government first so that they can reign in the cops. I guess I won't hold my breath.

[greenbuddha]

True. We need to reign in our government first so that they can reign in the cops. I guess I won't hold my breath.

 

Please don't (hold your breath that is), we need all the help we can get.