Bronx juries are to the New York police what third terms are to New York mayors: sources of bedevilment. There is nothing new in this, but lately it has acquired a fresh twist. The reason is a tendency of some officers — probably more than a few — to fix tickets as a, ahem, “professional courtesy” to an assortment of friends, relatives and some others found in the ranks of the overprivileged.
Clyde Haberman offers his take on the news.
The latest example of the Bronx blues for the police came a few days ago when a jury in state court found a lawyer, Stephen Lopresti, not guilty of drunken driving. Mr. Lopresti seems to have trouble remembering the precept that drinking and driving don’t mix. He has been convicted three times of driving while intoxicated. Last week, he was up on charges yet again, facing disbarment if found guilty.
Some jurors said later that the prosecution’s evidence left them unimpressed. But something else led them to their verdict, which took them all of 45 minutes to reach. They doubted the trustworthiness of two police officers who, while testifying against Mr. Lopresti, admitted to having fixed tickets in other cases.
That kind of police finagling, a time-honored practice, has emerged as a new ace in the hole for defense lawyers in the Bronx, where a grand jury is looking into a scandal that may involve several hundred officers. In a separate Bronx trial last month, an officer’s admission to having been a fixer seemed to influence jurors who acquitted a man of attempted murder and weapons charges.
Any officers testifying before a Bronx jury may well be asked now if they ever made tickets disappear. If the answer is yes, the Bronx district attorney’s office has an albatross around its neck.
But while the scandal hardly makes life easier for prosecutors, the fact is that the Bronx has long been rough going for them, especially when police testimony is pivotal.
“Bronx juries have always been hostile to police testimony,” a judge familiar with the situation said, trading anonymity for candor. The ticket-fixing mess, he said, “gives the juries up there an additional reason to reject their testimony.”
“I think it’s as much true now as ever before that defense lawyers love to try cases in the Bronx, and civil lawyers love to bring a lot of their cases there,” the judge said. “They get very good verdicts up there.”
Race and ethnicity are inescapable. Besides being the poorest borough, the Bronx is predominantly African-American and Latino, groups with comparatively high rates of crime and unhappy encounters with the police. A more aggressive “stop and frisk” policy by the police in recent years, overwhelmingly affecting blacks and Latinos, may have deepened resentments for some people. In 2010, officers made more street stops than ever: 600,601, or an average of 1,645 a day. The 183,326 recorded in the first three months of this year suggest they may be headed for yet a new record.
“It’s not a cost-free set of interactions,” said Eugene J. O’Donnell, a professor of police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Not that the relationship has to be antagonistic, Professor O’Donnell said: “People want to respect the police. They want to be able to look at the police and say, ‘These people are fair.’ ”
As for Mr. Lopresti, with his dubious history behind the wheel, he got all teary after the verdict, and told reporters he was headed to church to offer thanks. With luck, he heard a caution from above that drunken driving is not a victimless crime but, rather, a distinct threat to life.
For full local Times coverage, including an investigation of New York State’s institutions for the developmentally disabled and the death of a 13-year-old autistic boy in their care, see the N.Y./Region section.
Here’s what City Room is reading in other papers and blogs this morning.
Where’s Representative Anthony D. Weiner? The congressman skips some key parades. [New York Post]
A Port Authority police supervisor green-lighted a PATH train bound for the World Trade Center that was carrying a suspicious package, thought possibly to be a bomb. [New York Post]
The newest Supreme Court justices, the New Yorkers Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, have agreed in all 23 cases they have voted on. [New York Post]
Police on horseback patrol party-heavy Christopher Street. [New York Post]
Queens is front and center in the debate over legalizing same-sex marriage: two of the three undecided Democratic votes are from there. [Daily News]
Now open in New York: Obama Beauty Supply, Obama Fried Chicken and more. [Daily News]
The Department of Education’s headquarters will receive an extra $20 million, despite teacher layoffs. [Daily News]
Parents sue to keep a Coney Island charter school out of their children’s building. [Daily News]
The bees that swarmed on a Little Italy street corner last week are now thriving in Queens. [DNAinfo]
Musicians are making noise now that the Bethesda Fountain and its arcade have been declared quiet zones, in preparation for a new food cart. [Gothamist]
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