LDF Asks High Court to Restrain "Stop and Frisk"

    President 
Hon. Francis E. Rivers 

PRESS RELEASE Director Counsel 
egal efense und Jack Greenberg 

? Director, Public Relations NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. FOR RELEASE Jess DeVere Te 10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 68397 TUESDAY eee es 
August 29 1967 

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et LDF ASKS HIGH COURT TO 

RESTRAIN "STOP & FRISK" 

Brief Also Assesses Police/Negro Views in Riot Cities 

WASHINGTON---The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) 
cited extensive riot analysis in a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme 
Court today asking that "neither stops nor frisks" of citizens on the 
streets be constitutional "without probable cause." 

Some state courts have held that a lower standard--"suspicion"-- 
is enough to permit the police to stop and search, 

The LDF stated that its organizational purpose was "the legal eradi- 
cation of praetices which bear with discriminatory harshness upon 
Negroes and upon the poor" and that "the stop and frisk procedure which 
New York and Ohio ask this court to legitimate, in these cases, is such 
a practice," 

LDF attorneys filed their amicus curiae brief asking reversal in the 
cases of Nelson Sibron v. State of New York; John Francis Peters v. 
State of New York; and, John W. Terry v. State of Ohio, cases which ob- 
servers believe are the most important criminal cases which the court 
will decide this term. 

LDF lawyers were careful "least we be misunderstood" in making any 
suggestions that might indicate "that police conduct in anyway causes 
riot or is respensible for it. 

Police Negro Gap 

"We only observe that the frustration and bitterness of poverty, 
unemployment, slum housing, ignorance and segregation easily fixes on 
the police, 

"In return, and often for quite good reasons, the police view the 
Negro with fear; and--how apt the word here--suspicion," 

The LDF cited a National Crime Commission study that shows Negroes 
as being "significantly more negative than whites in evaluating police 
effectiveness in law enforcement." 

Negroes and white have "widely different perceptions of police dis- 
courtesy and misconduct, honesty and the need for police protection," 
the brief continues. 

Varying Attitudes 

LDF attorneys also cite conclusions reached by Dr. John Spiegel, 
Director of the Lemberg Center for the Study of Violence at Brandeis 
University. 

"Police attitudes toward working class Negro youths and young adults 
are often based cn the concept of the Negro as a savage, or animal, or 
some being outside of the human species 

"Therefore, the police expect behavior from Negroes in accordance 
with this concept. 

"The young Negroes in cities have complementary attitudes toward 
police officers, 

"The police are perceived as animal-like, brutal, and sadistic - 
again, outside the human species. 

(more) 



LDF ASKS HIGH COURT TO -2- 
RESTRAIN "STOP & FRISK" 

"Because of the police officers Conception of the Negro male, he frequently feels that most N groes are dangerous and need to be dealt with as an enemy even in the absence of visible criminal behavior, 
"Since he feels that he is dealing with an unreliable and powerful enemy, he has to deal with the threat in drastic ways, namely by sud- denly and ruthlessly stripping and disarming any Negro who has aroused his suspicion, 

"Because of the Negro's concept of the police, the young Negro male feels that he has only two alternatives open to him - intense resistance or abject surrender," 

These complementary attitudes, the LDF asserts, result in a vicious circle of behavior which serves to confirm the image which Negro males and police officers hold of each other, 

The attorneys define "probable cause" as being that amount of evidence pointing to likely guilt "that serves to single an individual out reasonably and persuasively from the mass of men," 

The LDF argues to protect the "liberty of every man" from subjection to police discretion--a test must be relatively objective, 

standard seeks precisely to objectify, to ning process by which the judgment of allowability s made, the brief states, 

The "probable cau 
regularize, the reas 
of police intrusions 

Suspicion, on the other hand, the brief argues, consists only of the whims of the police and "has proved to be a broad, all-purpose rubber stamp for validating police intrusions, " 

LDF attorneys participating in the action include Jack Greenberg, director-counsel; James M, Nabrit, III, associate counsel; Melvyn Zarr and Michael Meltsner, assistant counsel, 

They were joined by Professor Anthony G. Amsterdam of the University eon of Pennsylvania Law School, William E, Daniels, Jr., of Philadelphia is of counsel. 

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