The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the judge, Shira A. Scheindlin, “ran afoul” of the judiciary’s code of conduct by compromising the “appearance of impartiality surrounding this litigation.” The panel criticized how she had steered the lawsuit to her courtroom when it was filed in early 2008.
The ruling effectively puts off a battery of changes that Judge Scheindlin, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, had ordered for the Police Department. It postpones the operations of the monitor who was asked to oversee reforms to the department’s stop-and-frisk practices, which Judge Scheindlin found violated the Fourth and 14th Amendments of the Constitution.
In a two-page order, the panel of three judges also criticized Judge Scheindlin for granting media interviews and for making public statements while the case was pending before her.
The use of police stops has been widely cited by the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg as a crucial tool in helping drive the number of murders and major crimes in the city to historic lows. The police say the practice has saved the lives of thousands of young black and Hispanic men by removing thousands of guns from the streets.
The lawsuit claimed that blacks and Hispanics were singled out by the police for street stops even when there was no evidence of wrongdoing.
Judge Scheindlin’s decision, issued in August, found that the stop-and-frisk tactics violated the rights of minorities in the city. With that decision, which came at the conclusion of a lengthy trial that began in the spring, she repudiated a major element of the crime-fighting legacy of Mr. Bloomberg and his police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly.
The judges ordered that the stop-and-frisk lawsuit be reassigned to another judge. The Second Circuit ruling instructs the new judge to put off “all proceedings and otherwise await further action” from the circuit. The panel has not yet taken up whether Judge Scheindlin’s decision reached the correct conclusion.
The panel set a schedule for the appeals process that extends into 2014, after Mr. Bloomberg leaves office. Bill de Blasio, the Democratic nominee for mayor who is leading his Republican opponent, Joseph J. Lhota, by 40 points in recent polls, said he was “extremely disappointed” by the decision.
“We shouldn’t have to wait for reforms that both keep our communities safe and obey the Constitution,” Mr. de Blasio said in a statement. “We have to end the overuse of stop-and-frisk, and any delay only means a continued and unnecessary rift between our police and the people they protect.”
Mr. Lhota applauded the ruling. “As I have said all along, Judge Scheindlin’s biased conduct corrupted the case and her decision was not based on the facts,” he said in a statement, adding that the next mayor “absolutely must continue this appeal.”
In its ruling, the panel cited an article by The New York Times in a footnote, criticizing the judge for improperly applying a “related-case rule” to bring the stop-and-frisk case under her purview.
The Second Circuit was considering a request by the city to put off all of the reforms that Judge Scheindlin had ordered. She had installed an outside lawyer as a monitor to ensure that the Police Department was in compliance with the Constitution. She had also ordered that the department put into effect a pilot program in which officers would wear cameras on their bodies to record their interactions with the public. She also ordered a “joint remedial process” — in essence, a series of community meetings — to solicit public comments on how to reform the department’s tactics.
Those changes, and others, were put off as a result of the appeals court’s decision.
The court also expressed criticism of a series of interviews Judge Scheindlin gave to The New Yorker and The Associated Press.
One civil rights lawyer who brought the stop-and-frisk case, Jonathan C. Moore, said the Second Circuit’s criticism was trivial, and he expressed shock that the panel of judges would remove Judge Scheindlin of the case.
“I think it’s a travesty of justice for this panel of the Second Circuit to take this case away from a judge who worked very hard for the last five years to resolve very important, serious issues involving the civil rights of the residents of New York,” Mr. Moore said.
The order on Thursday affects two cases. In addition to the stop-and-frisk case, also known as the Floyd lawsuit, the order encompasses a narrower lawsuit, Ligon v. New York, which pertains to some street stops in the Bronx. Judge Scheindlin also found widespread constitutional violations by the police in that case.
Yahoo Local News – New York Times
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