N.Y. TIMES
A federal appeals court on Thursday halted a sweeping set of changes to the New York Police Department’s practice of stopping and frisking people on the street, and, in strikingly personal terms, criticized the trial judge’s conduct and removed her from the case.
The 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 nearly six years ago.
Lawyers for the city had gone to the Second Circuit to ask for a stay of Judge Scheindlin’s ruling and of the court-ordered mandates. In granting the stay, the circuit went beyond what the city had requested and unexpectedly ordered that the stop-and-frisk lawsuit, known as the Floyd case, be randomly reassigned.
The new judge, John Koeltl, was instructed to put off “all proceedings and otherwise await further action” from the panel. The appeals court has not yet taken up whether Judge Scheindlin’s decision reached the correct constitutional conclusion regarding the police tactics.
“We intimate no view on the substance or merits of the pending appeals,” the two-page order stated.
One civil rights lawyer who brought the stop-and-frisk case, Jonathan C. Moore, said the Second Circuit’s criticism was misplaced, and expressed shock that the panel would remove Judge Scheindlin.
“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.
In its ruling, the panel of three judges — John M. Walker Jr, José A. Cabranes and Barrington D. Parker — criticized Judge Scheindlin for granting media interviews and for making public statements while the case was pending before her, including articles in The New Yorker and by The Associated Press. In criticizing the judge for bringing the stop-and-frisk case under her purview, the three-judge panel also cited an article by The New York Times in a footnote.
At issue is the related-case rule, which allows lawyers to steer similar lawsuits before the same judge. But the Second Circuit said Judge Scheindlin had improperly applied that rule, citing her comments in 2007 to civil-rights lawyers who sought to reopen a long-settled stop-and-frisk lawsuit. If “you got proof of inappropriate racial profiling in a good constitutional case, why don’t you bring a lawsuit?” she said, according to a transcript quoted in the order on Thursday. “You can certainly mark it as related.”
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Here's the article that the U>S> Court of Appeals cited in their reversal of the case. JEFFREY TOOBIN THE NEW YORKER. Outstanding in-depth coverage of the issues; The New Yorker at its best.
JEFFREY TOOBIN NEW YORKER
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In a final irony, the resolution of the case may not matter much anymore. Bill de Blasio will be mayor soon, and he has vowed repeatedly to change the N.Y.P.D.’s stop-and-frisk policy anyway. The appeals-court judges can take the case away from Scheindlin, but they can’t take the mayoralty from de Blasio.