New York City Civil Rights Law Blog

Last month, the NYPD and the Civilian Complaint Review Board reached a "memorandum of understanding" in which the two groups agreed that the CCRB has the authority to administratively prosecute NYPD offers for police misconduct, rather than simply referring them to NYPD brass for disciplinary action, if the charges have been substantiated.

The importance of the CCRB depends largely on how much independent authority it has -- and is perceived by the public to have -- to hold NYPD officers accountable for police misconduct without going through department officials. Unfortunately, the memorandum of understanding didn't completely eliminate disputes about the board's prosecution rights.

On Monday, the New York Post published an article in support of the NYPD's problematic "stop, question and frisk" policy. Citing Health Department data, the reporter asserted not only that the controversial policy was responsible for New York City's declining murder rate, but also that the drop in the murder rate has resulted in a statistically noticeable increase in the life expectancy of New Yorkers. He concluded that the stop and frisk policy is so beneficial that we shouldn't be concerned about whether it violates our civil rights.

Even if it were true that the policy could be proven to have reduced the murder rate, there would still be serious constitutional problems. Our constitution has long been interpreted as prohibiting law enforcement from stopping and frisking people without reasonable suspicion that they are engaging in or about to attempt crimes, or that they are armed and dangerous. Without reasonable suspicion, a stop and frisk violates our Fourth Amendment rights, and the NYPD's policy easily demonstrates why.

A 51-year-old man has filed a lawsuit against the Wisconsin Department of Corrections after the agency mistakenly kept him in prison for more than a year longer than he was sentenced to serve. The problem? Prison officials mistook a concurrent sentence for a consecutive one.

The man's wrongful imprisonment lawsuit claims that the department was negligent. It does not yet specify damages, although he is seeking a jury trial. Aspokesperson for the Department of Corrections commented only that the agency plans to "let the legal process work and see what becomes of it."

According to the lawsuit, the man was convicted in three cases between 1996 and 2004. The convictions were for robbery, felon in possession of a firearm, eluding police and operating a vehicle without owner consent. The sentences were to have been served concurrently, meaning at the same time. Instead, prison officials apparently thought that one of them was to be served consecutively, or after the other sentences were complete. If his sentences were properly calculated, he would have been released on June 18, 2011.

Last year, an LA-area man was completely exonerated of the 1984 shooting death of a maintenance man named Jay French. The deceased man's ex-wife has repeatedly admitting to hiring a hit man to kill French because of a custody dispute, according to reports. The innocent man had spent 27 years in prison.

After an exhaustive review of evidence on appeal, the man and his attorneys concluded that he had been a victim of malicious prosecution. According to the federal lawsuit, Los Angeles County Sheriff's detectives knowingly hid evidence that would have freed him -- from both the defense and the county attorney.

Although the innocent man had a number of reliable alibi witnesses, the key evidence leading to his conviction was apparently eyewitness testimony by two men who said they had seen the driver of the car that peeled off after the shooting. According to the complaint, it wasn't just the notorious unreliability of eyewitnesses that resulted in the wrongful conviction, however -- Los Angeles County Sheriff's detectives ran bogus, coercive photo lineups to get the identifications they wanted. When they didn't get the right results, the man claims, they hid the problem and may even have lied on the stand.