ClydeR
08-19-2013, 05:00 PM
A federal judge in New York issued a 198 page ruling (http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/cases/show.php?db=special&id=317) that New York City's "stop and frisk" policy is unconstitutional. The judge says it's unconstitutional because it disproportionately affects blacks and hispanics. The city says that the proper test is whether or not blacks and hispanics, as a proportion of the population that commits crimes, are disproportionately stopped and frisked. The city is right, and when this gets to the Supreme Court, that's how they will rule.
Stops, by law, must be based on reasonable suspicion of a crime, a standard that city officials insist that NYPD officers have met. During testimony, it was revealed that more than 80% of those stopped were black or Hispanic, approximately 90% of whom were released after being found not to have committed any crimes.
The city argued during testimony that it focused a disproportionate share of its resources in minority neighborhoods with high crime rates and that its practices were "not racially biased policing."
Judge Scheindlin stated in her decision that the city adopted a "policy of indirect racial profiling by targeting racially defined groups for stops based on local crime suspect data." The result, she said, is "the disproportionate and discriminatory stopping of blacks and Hispanics in violation of the Equal Protection Clause" of the Constitution.
More... (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324085304579008510786797006.html)
If you don't want to be frisked, don't live in a high crime area, and don't go to a low crime area if you look like somebody from a high crime area.
Stops, by law, must be based on reasonable suspicion of a crime, a standard that city officials insist that NYPD officers have met. During testimony, it was revealed that more than 80% of those stopped were black or Hispanic, approximately 90% of whom were released after being found not to have committed any crimes.
The city argued during testimony that it focused a disproportionate share of its resources in minority neighborhoods with high crime rates and that its practices were "not racially biased policing."
Judge Scheindlin stated in her decision that the city adopted a "policy of indirect racial profiling by targeting racially defined groups for stops based on local crime suspect data." The result, she said, is "the disproportionate and discriminatory stopping of blacks and Hispanics in violation of the Equal Protection Clause" of the Constitution.
More... (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324085304579008510786797006.html)
If you don't want to be frisked, don't live in a high crime area, and don't go to a low crime area if you look like somebody from a high crime area.