Lawyers representing New York City on Saturday filed papers asking a federal appeals court to vacate a judge's orders that require the police department to modify its stop-and-frisk practice, which has been likened to racial profiling, reports show.
In papers filed with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, lawyers argue that U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin's orders this summer should be vacated largely for the same reasons a three-judge panel of the appeals court gave in staying her decision on Oct. 31, pending an appeal, the Associated Press reports.
The panel stayed Scheindlin’s orders and removed her from the case, arguing that she misapplied a related case ruling that allowed her to take the stop-and-frisk case and gave media interviews during the trial, calling her impartiality into question, reports show.
"At a minimum, the District Court's misconduct makes it reasonable to question the impartiality of the District Court Orders, and at a maximum represents a violation of Appellant's Due Process rights to a neutral arbiter and to present a defense," the filings said, according to the AP. "In either case, the District Court Orders must be vacated."
Sheindlin was widely celebrated this summer when she ruled in August that the city’s stop-and-frisk policy violated the civil rights of scores of blacks and Hispanics by disproportionally stopping, questioning and sometimes frisking them. She assigned a monitor to assist the department with changing its policy and training programs.
Read more at the Associated Press.