NYPD Stop and Frisk Law Challenged; Lindsey Lohan Back in Court
MALVEAUX: The tiniest state in the European Union is at the center of some major financial shock waves today, and I'm not talking about Greece. This is Cyprus. Cyprus is being asked to tax the savings accounts in people's banks at about 10 percent in exchange for a 10 billion Euro bailout from its E.U. partners. That's a first in the short but painful history of Eurozone bailouts, and it set off a weekend run on ATMs, people trying to get their savings out before taxes hit. Banks are staying closed through Wednesday to prevent a run. Parliament is due to vote on that tax tomorrow. So how offensive is this? Check out that salute. The Nazi salute on the field of a professional soccer game in Greece over the weekend. And the player is actually doing this to celebrate a goal. That 20 year old was immediately admonished. Look at the look at the face of his teammate. Eke. In his defense, he said he did not know this was a Nazi salute. That he doesn't know politics. But he certainly has time to learn now because he's been banned for life from ever playing on his country's national team. A close call for Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. He was on his way home from his son's soccer game when a truck sideswiped his car while making an illegal turn. Governor Jindal wasn't hurt but a state trooper sustained minor injuries. The truck driver was cited for making that improper turn. New York City's controversial Stop and Frisk law is facing a court challenge starting today. The police say that the Stop and Frisk has cut the crime rate dramatically. The critics say it racially profiles minorities at far too great a rate. Here's what we know about numbers. New York City police made five million stops in the last decade. More than half of them, 52 percent, were black people. 32 percent of those stops, Hispanic. Only 11 percent of the stops were white people. But if you look at the population breakdown, it shows that the numbers are upside down because blacks and Hispanics are each only a quarter of the population while whites are almost half, 44 percent. While the numbers do seem to make a case for a class action suit if you look precinct to precinct, the NYPD says it actually represents the numbers of people who are actually cited in crimes, the number of minorities who are cited in crimes. Joining me now, former juvenile court judge, Glenda Hatchett, and criminal defense attorney, Joey Jackson. Joey, let he will start with you. Numbers are a tricky thing. There's fuzzy math. There's different math. There's math that makes sense. There's math you can fudge. In this respect, does math play into this case in front of the court today?</s>JOEY JACKSON, DEFENSE ATTORNEY & CNN CONTRIBUTOR: You know, I really think it does, Ashleigh. Just to be clear, I know police have a very difficult job. We depend on them in large measure to keep us safe. They do a wonderful job. The question becomes, there's a tension between our wanting them to deter crime and police stopping people inappropriately who don't deserve to be stopped. When you look at the statistics, they are telling. In a city of 8.2 million people, the disproportionate number of people of color that are being stopped. If you strike the appropriate balance you stop people because there's a basis and legal justification, that's one thing. If you're not, that's quite another.</s>MALVEAUX: So, Judge Hatchett, the person who sort of was at the genesis of this case was a young African-American doctor. He was just stopped one too many times for his liking and ultimately this snowballed into a class-action case. Without question, anybody would say it's awful to be in his position. At the same time, the NYPD says, where they do the majority of these stops, it so happens those are minority communities, and that their argument would be, should we not protect those minority communities from crime?</s>GLENDA HATCHETT, FORMER JUVENILE COURT JUDGE: I agree with Joey. It's necessary. I understand that. What I'm concerned most about, Ashleigh, and I want to make sure that we all understand that the federal district judge today will not decide on whether this is legal or not, but what the methods and should there be modification. The bottom line, out of the approximately 540,000 stops last year, only 10 percent of those resulted in an arrest, and a few of those, even fewer of those, involved cases with weapons. So perhaps there should be some kind of modification. There should be more balance. The disproportionate number of African-American and Hispanic is really alarming so we might -- I think that we should take a step back and see if there's a way that we can balance it so the community is safe but yet people's rights are being protected.</s>MALVEAUX: Joey, the judge makes a great point. 10 percent where they get arrests out of those people stopped. But if you take those numbers and look at them in non-percentage numbers, we had 419 murders in 2012 here in New York and back in the 1990s those numbers were in the 2,000s. That's dramatic, 10 percent. So again, I bring up the math. Glenda Hatchett is clearly pointing out this will not stop. This process, it will just allow tailoring of the process. What can you do to tailor it, Joey?</s>JACKSON: The police will argue it's dramatic. Murders are at an all- time low and it's because of the aggressive job that we do that this is taking place. What we have to look at is whether the end justifies the means. We want murder rates to be low. We want everyone to be safe. We don't want people's constitutional rights and liberties to be affected unduly. What a judge can do is rule on the law. You don't approach people for discriminatory reasons. You don't profile. However, if you see there's a crime being committed or about to be committed or there's some other measure that gives you probable cause, you do what a police officer is lawfully entitled and expected to do.</s>HATCHETT: That line is very fuzzy.</s>MALVEAUX: Is it ever. You got probable cause, reasonable suspicion and then a hunch. That's where this gets really fuzzy. All right. Thank you to both of you. I have a test for our viewers, and I just want to throw this out there for you. What is Lindsay Lohan in for this time? She's due back in court this morning. We tried to remember what it could be. We looked up the things it might be. Are you ready? Allegedly punching a reader in a New York nightclub, a crash between her truck on a highway, allegedly hitting a New York restaurant worker and leaving the scene, stealing a necklace, her Santa Monica DUI arrest. Maybe it was her Beverly Hills DUI arrest. Maybe it was driving on suspended license, perhaps missing alcohol counseling sessions, or maybe it was cocaine possession or failing a drug test. She has faced all of these. And I think we ran out of time in our research. Tell you what today's issue is all about.