Friday, November 15, 2013
CRL&P Daily Reads: Nov. 15, 2013
Ten homeless people file civil rights lawsuit to keep city from evicting them from a local landfill.
NYC's stop-and-frisk policy results in conviction in just 3 percent of cases.*
Disabled man sues city under ADA for right to keep his service dog--a pit bull.
California judge rejects challenge to local ordinance banning the use of 'sign waver' advertisements.
Pennsylvania judge rejects request to block challenge to the state law banning recognition of same-sex marriages; Hawaii judge upholds state's new same-sex marriage law; and, transgender woman's employment discrimination case is tossed.
Victims call for legislation criminalizing revenge porn.
Jimmy Carter says the U.S. should abolish the death penalty.
* Correction: A helpful reader observed that the second link above was incorrect. It previously stated that New York City's stop-and-frisk policy leads to sentences of 30 days or more in just 1.5 percent of the cases, but the rate is actually much lower than that. In fact, the AG's report states on page 3:
Less than one in seventeen SQF arrests, or 0.3% of stops, resulted in sentences of more than 30 days of imprisonment.
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/civil_rights/2013/11/crlp-daily-reads-nov-15-2013.html
Comments
sorry - fixed link here: http://www.ag.ny.gov/pdfs/OAG_REPORT_ON_SQF_PRACTICES_NOV_2013.pdf
Posted by: heh | Nov 15, 2013 11:04:30 AM
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I will correct this ASAP.
Posted by: Andrew M. Ironside | Nov 15, 2013 1:09:35 PM
Your line about the AG's stop and frisk report overstates the number of people receiving jail terms of 30 days or more. It's actually only .3% of those stopped. (see p3 of the report, here: http://www.ag.ny.gov/pdfs/OAG_REPORT_ON_SQF_PRACTICES_NOV_2013.pdf).
The linked NY Magazine article says that 1.5 percent of those *convicted* - who themselves made up only a small fraction of those stopped -- received jail terms of more than 30 days. According to the report, about 6% of those stopped were arrested (report at p 1); just over half of those arrested were convicted (report at p1); 48.7% of those convicted received incarceratory sentences; and of those only about 23% received more than 30 days (report at pp 10-11). That adds up to .3% of those stopped receiving sentences of 30+ days, or 5.7% of those arrested (report at p. 12).
(If my math is right, that also means nymag understated the number of 30+ day sentences following convictions, which I think is about 11%, not 1.5%)
Posted by: heh | Nov 15, 2013 11:03:53 AM