What would Gravedigger and Coffin Ed tell the New York stop stop-and-frisk jury?

What would Gravediggger and Coffin Ed tell the stop stop-and-frisk jury?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZpbdAx96K0
 Go to 10:15 

Let’s start with a concept Judge Judy calls “de minimis”: the law does not concern itself with trifles.  If this were a civil law suit instead of a criminal trial – assuming a law existed that allowed government to sue anyone who obstructed its administration – the video of cops inviting demonstrators through a barrier and leading them right to the precinct entrance would make it impossible to sue them -- no?  If the cops could not sue them for a dime – in a civil action -- they should not be able to jail them for a day – yes?  

Let’s do some eighth-grade math: TV news cannot play 10 minutes in a row – and nobody would watch: if the cops arrested the demonstrators after 1 minute of singing instead of waiting 10 minutes, then, the let-me-help-you/I-must-arrest-you incongruity would have been too glaring for all the world to see.  Too obviously no harm was done.

No police service was hindered at point of delivery -- no officer was blocked from performing any public function.  Suppose some officers in the police building decided to go out the back way to avoid the small (22 people) demonstration in the front – is that a big deal?  Suppose a street sweeping machine had been unable to do its rounds on that block that day because of the hundreds of demonstrators in the way: should they all have been charged with a misdemeanor – and face up to a year in jail (which they would actually serve if they demonstrated again while on a year’s probation)?  What kind of crazy country are we becoming?

Would it be the right of one, lone demonstrator to block one street sweeper -- say, to protest something he or she thought Sanitation Department was doing wrong on one block?  No; because everybody cannot be obstructing every service anytime they think something is wrong.  But scores or hundreds of demonstrators tells of a weighty political issue that puts society's interest in First Amendment protected free speech above occasional delivery of incidental services.

It would be an intolerable chilling effect on freedom of speech if any officer or government employee who is impeded in any direction by demonstrators is able thereby to charge them with a serious crime.  That would give police the potential to break up or water down any demonstration whose content of speech they disagreed with simply by walking officers at or through demonstrators. In this case the police did it the other way around -- they tried to put the demonstrators in the way of the police (and hoped the 10 minute gap would make us forget).

Last of all -- before you of the jury listen to the prosecutor (who gets to speak last) – you know that prosecution is programmed to make the non-serious sound serious in a case like this (just as defense is programmed to do the opposite).  When prosecution tries to make you see of this little protest singing group in the worst the-sky-is-falling light – you can take that very lightly just by thinking how those two fine able officers in that marvelously hip film for its era, "Cotton Comes to Harlem" would have acted – how would Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson would have handled the exact same situation?  

   
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jqUMA3w7GZ0 
 Go to 10:15