Race based class claim for stops in investigation of crime fails

New York’s 1st Dept. holds that an equal protection class claim for stops of black males while looking for a suspect failed on the merits. The Fourth Amendment claim had been previously upheld eleven years ago by the New York Court of Appeals in Brown v. State, 89 N.Y.2d 172, 674 N.E.2d 1129, 652 N.Y.S.2d 223 (1996). Brown v. State, 2007 NY Slip Op 6490, 45 A.D.3d 15, 841 N.Y.S.2d 698 (3d Dept. 2007):

Upon our review of the record, we find that neither the testimony of the law enforcement officers investigating this crime and the related documentary evidence nor the testimony of the class members established that each and every member of the class experienced a significant interruption of his or her freedom of movement so as to amount to an actionable seizure (see People v Bora, supra at 535-536; Landsman v Village of Hancock, 296 A.D.2d 728, 733, 745 N.Y.S.2d 258 [2002], appeal dismissed 99 N.Y.2d 529, 782 N.E.2d 563, 752 N.Y.S.2d 586 [2002]). To the contrary, the evidence demonstrates that the vast majority of police encounters did not go beyond brief level common-law inquiries, involving requests for name, identification, destination and possible information about the crime, and a request to show hands and arms (see People v Hollman, supra at 184, 191-192). While three individual claimants were found to have been seized (Brown, Sheryl Champen and Cantave), their encounters occurred under materially different circumstances: a street encounter (Brown), a bus-boarding encounter (Champen) and a traffic stop (Cantave); their disparate experiences in which their rights were violated provide no basis for relief to the class as a whole, and the remaining tort claims were properly dismissed.

New York traffic law requires that turn signals always be used, not just when it is safe to change lanes. Accordingly, defendant’s traffic stop was valid, and that led to the officer finding that it was a rental car and that the defendant had a knife, and a patdown revealed a hard object hidden in his underwear that was not anatomical. So, off to the precinct house they go and defendant is ordered to strip down and in his underwear is cocaine wrapped in a ball. The stop and ensuing actions were legal, and the motion to suppress should not have been granted. People v. Rice, 2007 NY Slip Op 6503, 44 A.D.3d 247, 841 N.Y.S.2d 72 (1st Dept. 2007).*