Citing parallel declines in stop-and-frisk encounters and crime rates, U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin on Sept. 17 rebuffed the Bloomberg administration’s request that she delay remedies she ordered to the NYPD program while her ruling is being appealed.
“The city offers no evidence to support the argument that the stop-and-frisk practices found unconstitutional in this court’s opinions are necessary to crime reduction,” she wrote in denying the request. “Indeed, the evidence cited by the City directly contradicts this argument.
‘Crime, Stops Both Falling’
“The city notes that the number of stops in the second quarter of 2013 is half what it was in the second quarter of 2012,” she continued. “Despite the precipitous decline in the number of stops, the crime rate has continued to fall (or has certainly not increased). The city presents no evidence that effective policing and constitutional policing are incompatible.”
Judge Scheindlin ruled Aug. 12 that the program was being administered in an unconstitutional fashion, had stopped hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers without legal justification, and encouraged officers to target young black and Latino men for stops. She ordered a number of changes in training, record-keeping, supervision and discipline involving stops, and appointed a monitor and a facilitator to oversee the reforms.
Mayor Bloomberg objected to the ruling, which he said would reverse the historic declines in crime during his nearly 12 years in office, and filed an appeal. The city on Aug. 27 asked Judge Scheindlin to delay the implementation of any changes until the appeals had run their course.
Mr. Bloomberg reacted to Judge Scheindlin’s refusal to delay the remedies with a display of bad temper. When a reporter asked him about the decision, saying the Judge had “ruled against you on the appeal,” he interrupted with, “No, no, she didn’t rule against me — she ruled against the people of the city,” according to the New York Times.
Saying that she had ruled as expected—and probably referring to his earlier charges that the Judge was biased in favor of the civil-rights advocates who brought the case—Mr. Bloomberg added, “I don’t know why it’s even newsworthy, and I don’t know that anybody even covered it other than a tiny bit.”
The number of stop-and-frisks performed by NYPD officers had risen steadily, topping 684,000 in 2011. Stops began declining in the second quarter of 2012 as complaints about stop-and-frisk grew more vocal. For the first quarter of the past two years, police made 203,500 stops in 2012 and 99,788 in 2013. For the second quarter, they made 133,934 stops in 2012 and 58,088 this year.
Even so, homicides through Aug. 25 were down 27 percent over last year’s record-breaking lows, and shootings were down 26 percent, according to the Mayor’s Office.
‘Precisely Wrong Signal’
“Ordering a stay [a delay of the order] now would send precisely the wrong signal,” she wrote. “It would essentially confirm that the past practices, resulting in hundreds of thousands of stops—overwhelmingly of minorities—that resulted in little or no enforcement action or seizure of contraband were justified and based on constitutional police practices. It would also send the message that reducing the number of stops is somehow dangerous to the residents of this city. Because neither proposition is accurate, the granting of a stay is not in the public interest.”
The advocacy group Communities United for Police Reform reacted positively to Judge Scheindlin’s ruling. “We applaud the court’s decision to insist on carrying out justice for the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who have had their rights violated over the defiance of the Bloomberg administration,” said spokeswoman Joo-Hyun Kang. “Mayor Bloomberg would be wise to drop his continued challenges to reforms that nearly all New Yorkers understand are necessary to move our city forward.”
Corporation Counsel Michael A. Cardozo said the city would now request a stay from the appeals court.
The appeals court is unlikely to hear the case before Mr. Bloomberg leaves office Dec. 31. The Democratic candidate to replace him, Bill de Blasio, has promised to drop the appeal if elected. The Republican candidate, Joe Lhota, supports the stop-and-frisk program and the appeal.
Judge Scheindlin also appointed an Academic Advisory Council of 12 law professors to assist the monitor, Peter L. Zimroth, and the facilitator, Nicholas Turner. The professors “have generously agreed to provide their expertise in a pro bono capacity,” she said.
Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick J. Lynch scoffed at the appointment of the panel. “You don’t need a vanload of academics to solve the problem,” he said in a statement. “Just properly staff and fund the Police Department and end illegal quotas and the issue will be resolved.”