The whole idea of limiting stop-and-frisk comes from the notion that it is unconstitutional. People believe that police officers are targeting suspects based on unjustifiable suspicions, which leads to the idea of racial profiling. Opponents to stop-and-frisk argue that furtive movements cannot be justification alone for stopping and questioning someone. But if that is seen as unconstitutional, then an unfair and biased judge should also be determined unconstitutional.

Before reading this article, I heard much criticism from people that Judge Shira Scheindlin was running an unfair trial, and had her verdict made before the trail even started. The Constitution allows citizens the right to a fair trial, and Scheindlin was unconstitutional in Floyd v. City of New York, as well as previous trials. I agree with her statement when she kept telling the defense to stop talking about the effectiveness of the policy, because a policy can be very effective but if it is unconstitutional then it doesn’t matter how good it works. She just needs to follow her own statements and stay fair and constitutional in her trials.

Her past record shows that there is some type of resentment towards police officers, and I think that skews the truth of the situation. Of course no one will no the reality of the situation, except the people present, but when you have a cop arresting the leader of the Latin Kings I think his actions are justifiable. I know that every situation is not perfect, and some police officers have it in their mind that they want to arrest someone, even if they are completely innocent. But that obviously does not happen enough if the statistics show such a small amount of arrests. There still should not be any unjustifiable arrests, but the decisions by Scheindlin to be anti-public safety and authorities can be even more detrimental to New Yorkers’ safety.

Now that doesn’t mean stop-and-frisk is the sole reason crime and murders have decreased exponentially. Obviously there needs to be some sort of warranted search if there is a feeling a threat, but it should not be done so often just to complete quotas and show good statistics. And if the NYPD is decreasing stop-and-frisks greatly and creating more detailed reports during a court trial on the issue, it only further proves that many of the stops are unnecessary.

One thing I did not agree with in the article was the way it defined stop-and-frisks. “Police officers may arrest a suspect only if they have probable cause to believe that he committed a crime.” I do not think stop-and-frisks simply allow police officers to arrest suspects if they believe to have committed a crime. Suspects need to have a weapon or some illegal item on them to warrant an arrest. The occurrences when police officers arrest them without any reason show that there are faults in the system, which prove the practice to be somewhat unconstitutional. But the only way to really fix the system is by having a fair trial and sticking to the constitutional rights of all parties.

Does Scheindlin have some sort of vendetta against police officers that every time there is a trial she is in favor of the opposing side?