Political ‘Specter’ Haunts Appeal of Stop-and-Frisk Case, Federal Judges Warn
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
If Bill de Blasio were really smart — and he may turn out to be — he’d upend the stop, question and frisk case by going into federal court with a request to switch sides. He’d tell the court he can handle the NYPD and has no interest in having it run by a federal judge.
That’s my own takeaway from the astounding hearing Tuesday at the federal courthouse in Foley Square.
The appeals court is considering the city’s request to stay Judge Shira Scheindlin’s ruling that found the city’s stop-question-and-frisk program to be unconstitutional and set up a monitor over the Police Department.
The hearing started with Judge Jose Cabranes accusing the city of “speaking out of two sides of its mouth” by castigating the trial judge for ruling against the police but “dragging its feet on the appeal.” It ended up with him warning that the appeals court could yet resolve the case before Mayor Bloomberg’s term is over.
It wasn’t just Cabranes. . . . To continue reading this column, please click here.
