Floyd v. The City of New York

Background

The order concerns related litigation about the New York City Police Department’s stop, frisk, search, and trespass-enforcement practices. In 2013, the court found the City liable for violating the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments through unconstitutional stop-and-frisk practices. The court then entered a permanent remedial order, appointed an independent monitor, and required a community-based joint remedial process to develop additional reforms. The Davis plaintiffs later agreed to participate in the Floyd and Ligon remedial process, and the remedies were incorporated into the Davis settlement.

The Floyd and Davis plaintiffs moved to modify the remedial order to increase community engagement in the ongoing monitorship. They requested that the monitor arrange annual community surveys and twice-yearly field audits of stop-and-frisk activity, that the court hold public status conferences at least twice a year, and that the court appoint a Community Collaborative Board to advise the monitor and court and participate in developing discipline reforms. The City and the monitor opposed the motion.

While the motion was pending, the monitor proposed a community liaison position. The parties, the monitor, and community groups participated in selecting a candidate, and on December 16, 2022, the court appointed Germain Thompson as the independent community liaison. The plaintiffs argued that this development did not fully resolve their concerns and asked the court either to delay ruling for 60 days after the liaison plan was finalized or to deny the motion without prejudice. The opinion does not state that the court adopted the requested “without prejudice” wording.

Legal standard

The court explained that a federal district court has broad authority under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b), as well as inherent authority, to revise an injunction. But the court should not modify an injunction in a way that defeats the injunction’s purpose.

Analysis and rulings

Community surveys. The plaintiffs sought annual surveys by an outside entity working with community stakeholders. The monitor had revised its compliance matrix to include the Community Liaison’s input and to ensure that community experiences and perspectives were considered when measuring the City’s compliance. Because the plaintiffs agreed with those revisions and proposed no further changes, the court concluded that the survey request was moot, meaning there was no longer a live dispute requiring that relief.

Field audits. The plaintiffs also sought regular, twice-yearly field audits using integrity-testing methods to assess whether officers treated people differently based on race or conducted stops, arrests, frisks, or searches without adequate legal grounds. The City argued that the method was unreliable and untested, and the monitor raised concerns about its difficulty and scale. The court found that the proposal was not sufficiently tailored to this monitorship and lacked real-world support showing that it would be safe, feasible, or reliable. The court therefore found that the proposal was unlikely to advance the remedial order’s purpose.

The court denied the request to modify the remedial order to include annual community surveys and twice-yearly stop-and-frisk field audits in the monitor’s compliance assessment.

Public status conferences. The court denied the request to require public status conferences at least twice a year. It stated that such conferences were not necessary at that time, while noting that it could schedule one or more conferences later if it determined they would be helpful.

Community Collaborative Board. The court denied the request to appoint a Community Collaborative Board. The court recognized the importance of engaging people most affected by the underlying police practices and agreed that reforms were less likely to succeed if affected communities did not view them as legitimate. But it concluded that the Community Liaison was better positioned to obtain community input and address public perceptions of the reform process through multiple avenues of engagement.

Disposition

The court denied the plaintiffs’ motion to modify the remedial order. It also denied as moot the request to hold the motion in abeyance, and denied the plaintiffs’ request for oral argument. The opinion does not state that any of these denials were with or without prejudice.