bobbyw24
10-23-2009, 04:45 AM
Dead Law Walking
Why are New York cops arresting gay people on charges ruled unconstitutional 26 years ago?
By Daniel Redman
Posted Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009, at 1:52 PM ET
In 1983, New York's high court struck down as unconstitutional a 1960s-era provision that made it illegal to cruise—that is, to hit on someone in a public place. And yet in the 26 years since, on thousands of occasions, the New York Police Department has continued to enforce the defunct law, historically used to target gay people.
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:9QGu7qn1eruJoM:http://www.sidfaiwu.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/human-rights-campaign.gif
The defendant in the 1983 case was a gay man arrested for striking up a conversation with a plainclothes police officer and asking him back to his house for sex. The court threw out the anti-cruising law, reasoning that the state couldn't criminalize an act anticipatory to sodomy when sodomy itself was constitutionally protected. (Two years earlier, the same court had found the state's anti-sodomy law unconstitutional.)
Whatever one may think of cruising and whether it should be prohibited, the court's ruling should have killed off the statute. Instead, in the 26 years of this law's odd posthumous career, district attorneys brought 4,750 prosecutions and judges convicted 2,550 defendants. For violating an imaginary law, these defendants paid a decidedly non-imaginary $70,000 in bail and $190,000 in court fees and fines. In the last 10 years, NYPD officers also issued 9,693 citations, forcing citizens to pay $71,000 in fees. The criminal records of these victims have never been expunged and the fees and fines have not been refunded.
In 2001, a gay man who refused to plead guilty got his case dismissed, but he did not win a broader remedy. Police arrested the man for telling a plainclothes officer in the Bronx's Van Cortlandt Park that he was there "to meet guys." When his attorney Michael Spiegel discovered that the anti-cruising law was invalid, he brought it to the court's attention. Four months later, the case was dismissed. Spiegel and the client considered a civil rights lawsuit, but the city offered a settlement that the client accepted. Despite the settlement, the case should have still put the cops, prosecutors, and the courts on notice. In 2003, Gay City News' Duncan Osborne wrote a story headlined "Gay man in 2001 arrested on soliciting law thrown out in 1983." Yet the NYPD continued to arrest and issue summonses, and district attorneys continued to prosecute.
In March 2008, civil rights lawyers brought a class action in federal court on behalf of the thousands of people unconstitutionally arrested, cited, and prosecuted under the defunct anti-cruising law. In May, Judge Shira Scheindlin ordered the City of New York to send letters to the police, district attorneys, and trial judges to remind them that the anti-cruising law was void and should no longer be enforced. NYPD brass sent out a bulletin to officers stating that in each officer's personal copy of the penal code, the law should be "stricken by drawing a line through it in black ink." (After 26 years, the law was still on the books because the legislature had never repealed it.)
Apparently, the NYPD ran out of black ink. From the day that the bulletin went out until now, 85 additional summonses for cruising have been issued.* Celeste Koeleveld, of the New York City Law Department, says that the NYPD has taken "many proactive steps to address the issuance of any summonses" under unconstitutional laws. [ADDENDUM: In a statement made available on the record only after publication, the city's law department also
http://www.slate.com/id/2233014/
Why are New York cops arresting gay people on charges ruled unconstitutional 26 years ago?
By Daniel Redman
Posted Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009, at 1:52 PM ET
In 1983, New York's high court struck down as unconstitutional a 1960s-era provision that made it illegal to cruise—that is, to hit on someone in a public place. And yet in the 26 years since, on thousands of occasions, the New York Police Department has continued to enforce the defunct law, historically used to target gay people.
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:9QGu7qn1eruJoM:http://www.sidfaiwu.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/human-rights-campaign.gif
The defendant in the 1983 case was a gay man arrested for striking up a conversation with a plainclothes police officer and asking him back to his house for sex. The court threw out the anti-cruising law, reasoning that the state couldn't criminalize an act anticipatory to sodomy when sodomy itself was constitutionally protected. (Two years earlier, the same court had found the state's anti-sodomy law unconstitutional.)
Whatever one may think of cruising and whether it should be prohibited, the court's ruling should have killed off the statute. Instead, in the 26 years of this law's odd posthumous career, district attorneys brought 4,750 prosecutions and judges convicted 2,550 defendants. For violating an imaginary law, these defendants paid a decidedly non-imaginary $70,000 in bail and $190,000 in court fees and fines. In the last 10 years, NYPD officers also issued 9,693 citations, forcing citizens to pay $71,000 in fees. The criminal records of these victims have never been expunged and the fees and fines have not been refunded.
In 2001, a gay man who refused to plead guilty got his case dismissed, but he did not win a broader remedy. Police arrested the man for telling a plainclothes officer in the Bronx's Van Cortlandt Park that he was there "to meet guys." When his attorney Michael Spiegel discovered that the anti-cruising law was invalid, he brought it to the court's attention. Four months later, the case was dismissed. Spiegel and the client considered a civil rights lawsuit, but the city offered a settlement that the client accepted. Despite the settlement, the case should have still put the cops, prosecutors, and the courts on notice. In 2003, Gay City News' Duncan Osborne wrote a story headlined "Gay man in 2001 arrested on soliciting law thrown out in 1983." Yet the NYPD continued to arrest and issue summonses, and district attorneys continued to prosecute.
In March 2008, civil rights lawyers brought a class action in federal court on behalf of the thousands of people unconstitutionally arrested, cited, and prosecuted under the defunct anti-cruising law. In May, Judge Shira Scheindlin ordered the City of New York to send letters to the police, district attorneys, and trial judges to remind them that the anti-cruising law was void and should no longer be enforced. NYPD brass sent out a bulletin to officers stating that in each officer's personal copy of the penal code, the law should be "stricken by drawing a line through it in black ink." (After 26 years, the law was still on the books because the legislature had never repealed it.)
Apparently, the NYPD ran out of black ink. From the day that the bulletin went out until now, 85 additional summonses for cruising have been issued.* Celeste Koeleveld, of the New York City Law Department, says that the NYPD has taken "many proactive steps to address the issuance of any summonses" under unconstitutional laws. [ADDENDUM: In a statement made available on the record only after publication, the city's law department also
http://www.slate.com/id/2233014/