The question of the constitutionality of New York City’s “stop-and-frisk” policy was taken up today during a debate sponsored by Crain’s Tuesday morning. Four of the five Democratic candidates for the state’s top law enforcement office said they believed the police department’s widespread policy of stopping and searching people without probable cause may be unconstitutional.
The policy has apparently merited an investigation and possibly could lead to a lawsuit against the New York Police Department.
Eric Dinallo, a former prosecutor for the attorney general’s office under Eliot Spitzer, said the Supreme Court’s ruling in a 1968 case, Terry v. Ohio, allowed the police to use stop-and-frisk policing, but only in limited circumstances.
“The police department in the City of New York has taken that and made it into an institutional, systemic approach which I question the constitutionality of,” Mr. Dinallo said.
Sean Coffey, a former prosecutor, said stop-and-frisk was not being used to prevent crime but rather to simply meet a precinct commander’s arrest quotas.
The police maintain that they do not set quotas, though they do have “productivity goals,” according to statements made in previous news reports.
State Sen. Eric Schneiderman, who co-sponsored the bill that limited the use of the police database, said the overuse of stop-and-frisk was “part of a larger pattern of abuse in the criminal justices system” that has eroded people’s confidence in government.