Floyd v. The City of New York
- Analisa Torres
- 1:08-cv-01034
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Floyd v. City of New York, Judge Torres authorized the City to share protected records with a court-appointed monitoring team for police-compliance studies.
The City of New York, the court-appointed monitor and the monitor’s team, and the sealed or confidential records involved in the police-compliance studies.
What happened
Floyd v. City of New York, along with matters captioned Davis v. City of New York and Ligon v. City of New York, involved studies examining officers’ compliance with legal requirements during police-citizen encounters. The court had previously ordered the studies and required the City to support them.
Judge Torres’s sharing order authorized the City to provide the monitor and team with body-camera recordings, documents, data, and other information, including information from sealed or confidential records. The monitor and team must preserve the information, use it only for the studies and related publications or discussions, and then destroy or safeguard it.
The order also states that the City will not be held liable under laws protecting sealed or confidential records for producing the information. The order was issued by Judge Analisa Torres and remains enforceable after the studies and the monitorship end.
The detailed version
- Floyd v. The City of New York · No. 1:08-cv-01034
- Analisa Torres
- Apr. 29, 2021
Background
The court had previously approved studies examining officers’ compliance with applicable legal requirements during police-citizen encounters and required the City of New York to provide full support for the studies as directed by the monitor. The studies would involve the monitor and the monitor’s team reviewing body-worn-camera recordings, documents, data, and other information.
The City stated that producing the requested material could require sharing information connected to sealed events, including dismissed or sealed summonses, arrests, and other police-citizen encounters. The material could also include records protected by state law, such as recordings depicting juveniles being stopped or frisked. The order identifies several categories of sealed or confidential records protected under New York criminal-procedure, family-court, and civil-rights laws.
Order
The court authorized the City to share the protected recordings, documents, data, and other information described in the order with the monitor and the monitor’s team, as directed by the monitor, to further the studies.
The monitor and team must preserve information shared under this order and the February 12, 2021 order. They may use it only as reasonably necessary to complete the studies, publish the studies’ results, or discuss or defend those results. Afterward, they must destroy the information or safeguard and quarantine any information that cannot be permanently destroyed.
The order provides that the City will not be held liable under statutes concerning sealed or confidential records for producing the material to the monitor and team under this order or the February 12 order. It also states that the order continues to be enforceable after the studies conclude and after the monitorship ends. Judge Analisa Torres entered the order on April 29, 2021.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.