With stop-and-frisk now a widely used strategy around the country, police departments are watching carefully to see whether the legal challenges to the practice hold any implications for them, legal scholars said at a conference in Washington, DC, this morning. “Be assured that the rest of the county is listening and learning some good lessons and some not so good,” said University of Pittsburgh School of Law professor David Harris.
“The use of stop and frisk is legal and at some level it’s an efficacious tool, but you can grow it into a monster,” Harris continued, adding that it was important to “understand that there are costs associated with it.” Among those costs, argued Darius Charney — lead counsel in Floyd v. City of New York, the federal legal challenge to stop and frisk — is increased involvement of non-violent offenders in the criminal justice system. “This kind of group-based suspicion, race-based suspicion … is leading to detention and humilliation of a lot of people,” Charney said.