New York stop and frisk law overturned

[jkjsooner]

A federal judge has ordered the NY stop-and-frisk policy to be revised on 4th and 14th amendment grounds.

What do you think?

I think this is one case I can find common grounds with the libertarians on the board. I'm not as concerned about the 14th amendment issues but randomly stopping and frisking people on the street without probable cause clearly violates the 4th amendment IMO.

I can't even imagine that we would do that in America. I can't imagine being temporarily detained and frisked on a public street for no legitimate reason. Not only would that make me feel violated but it would also be extremely humiliating. (As opposed to being frisked at the airport where it is expected, the people walking by staring at you would assume you've committed some type of crime.)

[rock on sooner]

Mixed emotions here, major crime in New York is at a low not seen for
30-40 years. My guess is if that would happen in Chicago, something
similar would be the result. I understand and recognize the 4th, but
I wonder how many of the Libertarians would change their tune if they
somehow got mugged, shot up or worse if obvious ne'er do wells were
left alone? Is there profiling, most likely...is it necessary? IMO, yup!
these folks are up to no good and I'm certain that the result of NY's
efforts have saved lives, many dollars of ER and so on. The bottom
line is, I believe, ifn ya aint doin anything wrong, no reason to worry...

Now, this viewpoint orta git a response....

[olevetonahill]

Mixed emotions here, major crime in New York is at a low not seen for
30-40 years. My guess is if that would happen in Chicago, something
similar would be the result. I understand and recognize the 4th, but
I wonder how many of the Libertarians would change their tune if they
somehow got mugged, shot up or worse if obvious ne'er do wells were
left alone? Is there profiling, most likely...is it necessary? IMO, yup!
these folks are up to no good and I'm certain that the result of NY's
efforts have saved lives, many dollars of ER and so on. The bottom
line is, I believe, ifn ya aint doin anything wrong, no reason to worry...

Now, this viewpoint orta git a response....

Yup and HERE it is




First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Catholic.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

[olevetonahill]

But I dint do anything WRONG.

[Wishboned]

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

[cleller]

In this case professionals were taking a logical, though not always pleasantly accepted, step toward controlling crime. They identified the persons most likely to commit crimes, based on real data, then monitored them more closely. It worked. Surprise.

Now, since that did involve what some think is profiling, people are upset. If you can think of a more effective way to identify possible criminal individuals than profiling, we'd all like to hear it. In NYC black offenders are the suspects in a very high percentage of crimes. Blacks are also frisked more than whites, but at a lower rate than they represent as offenders.

At any rate, logic and human nature would point to the police tiring of the criticism, oversight, and regulation, and reducing their stop/frisks numbers. Crime will probably increase as a result. Also, remember, this is not a case of an overwhelmingly white officers conducting the frisks, black officers are well represented, and have been conducting the same type of work.

I'm fine with letting them choose which they'd rather have. More frisks and less crime, or fewer frisks and more crime. I'm sure it sucks to be a law abiding young black guy that is stopped by the police. I'm sure it sucks more too be shot while you stop in the store for something. Still, if you don't like the frisks, come up with something better, like finding a way to get your neighbors to act like decent, responsible citizens.

Its classic. In Chicago, the police are not doing enough, look at all the crime. In NY, the police are doing too much. What do you want? You think crime will stop itself in NY?

[KantoSooner]

OH, what wonderful words.
I lived in NYC in the late 80's. 2 years. In that time, I was mugged once, drove the door off a guy's car who was trying to mug/car jack me and had to hunker down behind cars twice to put metal between me and guys enjoying a refreshing afternoon shoot out with one another.
Now you can apparently walk the streets without significant risk of becoming involved in warfare.
I say if complying with an officer's request to stop and be frisked is the price of that change, then it's cheap at the price.

I am hardly unsympathetic to civil liberty issues, but it seems to me that when your society is dissolving into chaos, you straighten up the chaos. And, arming up in body armor and carrying battlefield weaponry whenever it's time to go grocery shopping is perhaps legal, but not the way any but a mentally disturbed few of us really want to have to live.

Oh, and young black or hispanic men? Try this: don't wear gangsta clothes and hang out in mobs around burning trash barrels visually tracking any civilians walking on your block. Guess what? If you don't behave like a criminal/predator, odds are much lower that you'll be treated like one.

[jkjsooner]

OH, what wonderful words.
I lived in NYC in the late 80's. 2 years. In that time, I was mugged once, drove the door off a guy's car who was trying to mug/car jack me and had to hunker down behind cars twice to put metal between me and guys enjoying a refreshing afternoon shoot out with one another.
Now you can apparently walk the streets without significant risk of becoming involved in warfare.
I say if complying with an officer's request to stop and be frisked is the price of that change, then it's cheap at the price.

Do you think stop and frisk is the only reason NYC was cleaned up?

[KantoSooner]

No, but it was part of it. Street cleaning (getting rid of burned out cars, broken shop windows, etc), many, many more cops on the streets, Rudy's installation of rails to prevent jay walking (seriously), umpteen surveillance cameras (and thus surer arrest and conviction), a generational shift that meant fewer 18-35 year old males on the street and so forth and so on.
The point is that NYC took street crime serously under Giulianni and Bloomberg whereas under the preceeding mayors going back to the 1950's, the attitude had been one of fearfully tiptoeing around the civil liberties of criminals.
And, by and large, it has worked and The City is better now than it's been since it's heyday in the 1940's.

[Bourbon St Sooner]

It's clearly a violation of the 4th amendment and the court is correct. I live in a city notorious for it's violance and have been a victim of crime several times. But there are other police tactics that are perfectly within the bounds of the Constitution and probably more effective. I watched a report on I think 60 minutes last week about a police force in Washington using counter-insurgency tactics to clean up a gang-infested town. It seems like a lot better approach than stopping and searching innocent citizens without probable cause.

[KantoSooner]

BSS, I think the reality of Stop and Frisk in NYC would surpirse many with it's benign aspect. These weren't gangs of jackboots suddenly blanketing a neighborhood. They were more like beat cops seeing an unfamiliar face on the street, stopping him, asking him what he was doing and, if they felt his story was a tad thin, asking him to empty his pockets.

In the anti-insurgency case you reference, the same thing could and will happen, it's just preceeded by a neighborhood resident informing the cop that an unknown dude is roaming around.

It may be a legally cogent difference, but I'm not sure it feels that different on the ground.