New York governor signs law banning ‘stop and frisk’ database

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New York governor signs law banning ‘stop and frisk’ database

July 16, 2010 03:17:17 pm

[JURIST] New York Governor David Paterson (D) [official website] signed a bill [press release] Friday prohibiting the retention of personal information of individuals detained New York City police during a “stop and frisk” but ultimately not charged with a crime. The law [A 11177A materials] was approved by the New York Assembly [official website] last month and will end the practice of police obtaining and keeping an electronic record of all individuals who are temporarily detained based on a police officer’s reasonable suspicion. Opponents of the law, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg [official website], argue that the current database has been an important crime fighting tool [AFP report] for police officers in New York City, crediting the database with a significant decrease in crime. Paterson stated that the law was consistent with the state’s Criminal Procedure Laws [§ 160.50 text] and with societal principles of justice, stating:

There is a principle – which is compatible with the presumption of innocence, and is deeply ingrained in our sense of justice – that individuals wrongly accused of a crime should suffer neither stigma nor adverse consequences by virtue of an arrest or criminal accusation not resulting in conviction. … Those accused of a crime are permitted to have their records sealed upon the dismissal of the charges. Therefore, simple justice as well as common sense suggest that those questioned by police and not even accused of a crime should not be subjected to perpetual suspicion.

In 2009, New York City police officers obtained information from more than 500,000 individuals [AP report], primarily minorities, as a result “stop and frisk” detentions.

“Stop and frisk” detentions are considered an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment [text], based on an officer’s reasonable suspicion and the necessity to protect the safety of police officers. Courts continue developing the case law surrounding the Fourth Amendment, balancing privacy issues against social necessity. In June, the US Supreme Court [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] in City of Ontario v. Quon [Cornell LII backgrounder] that an employer’s search of private text messages on a work-issued device does not violate the Fourth Amendment if the search is motivated by a legitimate work-related purpose and is not excessive in scope. In February, a US court of appeals ruled [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] that strip searching all incoming inmates does not violate the Fourth Amendment because it is necessary in order to prevent illegal substances from entering prisons. The Ohio Supreme Court [official website] ruled in December that a warrantless search of the contents of a suspect’s cell phone violates the Fourth Amendment [JURIST report] prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure, unless the search is necessary to protect the officers’ safety or there are other exigent circumstances

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail

On April 16, 1963, an incarcerated Martin Luther King, Jr. (arrested for demonstrating in defiance of a court order) wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama.

Part of the letter read: We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. Read the full text of the Letter.