{"id":7612,"date":"2012-11-19T06:34:38","date_gmt":"2012-08-19T14:12:03","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-08-19T14:12:03","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=7612","title":{"rendered":"NYT: “Judge Bars Testimony by Expert in Frisk Suit”"},"content":{"rendered":"

NYT: Judge Bars Testimony by Expert in Frisk Suit<\/a> by Russ Buettner:<\/p>\n

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has repeatedly said that the small number of guns found by police officers during stop-and-frisk encounters shows that the program is working as a deterrent, and not that the police are exercising poor judgment in deciding whom to stop, as critics have argued. <\/p>\n

But a federal judge said on Friday said that the city had \u201cno evidence\u201d to make the deterrence claim, and called the argument \u201ctoo speculative\u201d to be admitted in court by New York City\u2019s expert witness in a class-action lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the city\u2019s use of stop-and-frisk tactics. <\/p>\n

The city\u2019s expert appeared to be trying \u201cto justify stops on the basis of their deterrent impact, regardless of their legality,\u201d Judge Shira A. Scheindlin of Federal District Court in Manhattan wrote. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a Daubert challenge. Floyd v. City of New York<\/a>, 08 Civ. 1034 (SAS) (S.D.N.Y. August 17, 2012), at 14-15:<\/p>\n

Plaintiffs argue that \u201cSmith\u2019s crime reduction opinions\u201d should be excluded because they \u201care irrelevant to the questions posed by Plaintiffs\u2019 Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment claims: (1) Do NYPD officers conduct stops-and-frisks without reasonable suspicion?; (2) Do they stop civilians on the basis of their race?\u201d Defendants respond by arguing that Smith\u2019s opinion on the crime deterrent effects of these programs \u201care indeed relevant, as they represent alternative, race-neutral explanations for the racial patterns in [stops and frisks] which Fagan failed to consider in his analysis of the data\u201d and that \u201c[e]xcluding Smith’s opinions would be highly prejudicial by forcing the jury to accept Fagan\u2019s word unchallenged … when such strong evidence of methodological problems exists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defendants are conflating two different aspects of Smith\u2019s report: his benchmarking critique and his separate conclusion that the NYPD\u2019s programs are a proven strategy to combat crime and increase safety, particularly in minority neighborhoods. As I explained above, Smith\u2019s benchmarking critique challenges Fagan\u2019s finding that Blacks and Hispanics are stopped at disproportionately higher rates; it is a descriptive claim about the nature of racial disparities that is probative of the truth or falsity of plaintiffs\u2019 Fourteenth Amendment claim, and it is therefore admissible.<\/p>\n

However, Smith\u2019s opinions about the deterrence and crime reduction impacts of the NYPD\u2019s programs are inadmissible. Defendants argue that \u201cSmith\u2019s opinion that increased [stop and frisk] activity reduces neighborhood crime provides further evidence for his alternative hypothesis that [stops and frisks] are driven by where the crime occurs rather than by racial discrimination.\u201d …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Floyd v. City of New York, 283 F.R.D. 153 (S.D. N.Y. May 16, 2012), granted in part, denied in part, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 116540 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 17, 2012). See also Floyd v. City of New York, 861 F. Supp. 2d 274 (S.D. N.Y. 2012), Class certification granted 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68676 (S.D.N.Y., May 16, 2012).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}