The “stop-and-frisk” judge who got a scathing putdown from a federal appeals panel on Thursday is no stranger to controversy.
Manhattan federal Judge Shira Scheindlin — who ruled that the use of stop-and-frisk by cops was unconstitutional, only to see that decision blocked by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which also removed her from the case for lacking impartiality — has a history of drawing fire for her controversial rulings.
“I do think judges have a duty to protect individual rights, because that’s what the Bill of Rights is all about,” the 67-year-old Cobble Hill resident recently told the New York Law Journal. “It’s the responsibility of the judiciary to protect those rights granted by our founders. Now, does that make me an activist? No.”
The appeals panel disagreed.
Scheindlin, who was appointed to her lifetime judgeship by President Bill Clinton in 1994, has had plenty of high-profile cases in her nearly two decades on the job.
She has overseen three trials of John Gotti Jr., two of a California student who knew two of the 9/11 hijackers, the trial of international arms dealer Viktor Bout, and one of former Police Officer Francis Livoti after he killed civilian Anthony Baez in 1994 with a chokehold.
She also persuaded the MTA to reinstate subway ads that mocked Mayor Rudy Giuliani and found cops in contempt for enforcing a law against loitering for the purposes of begging for money or cruising for sex.
And she ruled that the NFL violated antitrust laws by barring Ohio State’s Maurice Clarett from the 2004 draft. The decision was overturned on appeal.
Regarding the Bloomberg administration and the NYPD, Scheindlin told The Associated Press in May: “I know I’m not their favorite judge. I do think that I treat the government as only one more litigant.”
A recent report found 60 percent of her 15 written “search-and-seizure” rulings since she took the bench in 1994 had gone against law enforcement.
She ripped it as a “below-the-belt attack” on judicial independence, adding that rumors that the mayor’s office was behind the study made it even more infuriating.
“If that’s true, that’s quite disgraceful,” Scheindlin said.