New York Can No Longer Stop And Frisk The 'Right People' For Being The 'Wrong Color'

It is now considered unconstitutional to stop and frisk New Yorkers solely on the basis of race.

[T]he city’s highest officials have turned a blind eye to the evidence that officers are conducting stops in a racially discriminatory manner. In their zeal to defend a policy that they believe to be effective, they have willfully ignored overwhelming proof that the policy of targeting “the right people” is racially discriminatory and therefore violates the United States Constitution.

— Judge Shira Scheindlin (S.D.N.Y.), in a ruling declaring that the New York Police Department’s hotly debated stop-and-frisk tactics violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.

(Continue reading to see Judge Scheindlin’s glorious 195-page opinion. It’s a legal document that should be on every lawyer’s required reading list.)

Stop-and-Frisk Opinion: Floyd v. New York City

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