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French critics who angrily denounced the US justice system for subjecting former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn to a humiliating “perp walk” found an unlikely ally yesterday: Mayor Bloomberg.
Reversing his position of just seven weeks ago, the mayor denounced as “outrageous” and a “circus” the long-standing practice of marching criminal suspects before photographers and TV cameras when they are transported from station houses to courthouses.
“I’ve always thought perp walks were outrageous,” Bloomberg said yesterday, when asked about Strauss-Kahn’s walk of shame following his arrest on charges of sexually assaulting a hotel maid. “That’s only my view.”
Except on May 17, Hizzoner said, “If you don’t want to do the perp walk, don’t do the crime.”
With the case now in tatters, Bloomberg yesterday pointed out that perp walks are clearly unfair to suspects who turn out to be innocent.
“Even if they’re guilty, they’re not guilty until they’re convicted, and yet we vilify them for the benefit of theater, for the circus,” he added. “You know they did it in Roman times, too.”
The mayor found support from those in the criminal-justice system.
“It makes you look as guilty as could be,” said one law-enforcement official.
Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for Brooklyn DA Charles J. Hynes, said, “[Hynes] is not in favor of them [perp walks] — we do not do them.”
Queens DA Richard Brown noted that the American Bar Association has issued standards recommending that prosecutors and cops shield people in custody from unnecessary media attention.
“While the Bar Association’s standards do not mandate that we go to any extremes to conceal our custody of an accused, they do require that we not exploit our custodial authority in a manner that is designed to generate unnecessary publicity of the accused,” Brown said.
New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman called perp walks antithetical to the American system, which presumes all suspects are innocent until proven guilty.
Arnie Kriss, a defense lawyer who has served as both an assistant district attorney and deputy police commissioner, also called for an end to the practice.
“They are not appropriate. You never know, a year, a year and half down the road, how a case is going to turn out,” he said.
With such strong allies, Bloomberg might have been on solid ground had he and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly not taken the opposite position just weeks ago.
Responding to French criticism of DSK’s perp walk, the mayor said then, “I don’t have a lot of sympathy for that. Our judicial system works where the public can see the alleged perpetrators.”
But the mayor also foresaw the potential risk.
“The really sad thing is if somebody is accused, does the perp walk, and turns out not to have been guilty,” he conceded at the time.
The following day, Kelly brushed off the French criticism, saying, “We handled this as a normal arrest. Perhaps people in France are just not that familiar with our system.”
Bloomberg’s spokesman Stu Loeser said there’s not much the mayor can do about the press staking out police station houses or courts.
“We have a free press in this country,” he said.
Meanwhile, Strauss-Kahn and his wife Anne Sinclair returned from dinner last night to the TriBeCa house they are renting to find a phalanx of media — and a front door that refused to open.
The couple struggled with the complicated lock for 10 minutes, ignoring shouted questions from reporters.
But when a French journalist asked what his state of mind was, Strauss-Kahn replied, “It’s the state of mind of someone who can’t pull out his key.”
A photographer took the key from DSK and tried to unlock the door — but gave up after several attempts.
Finally, the lock opened, but when the couple entered the house, they again couldn’t pull the key from the door.
An exasperated Sinclair said, “Either leave it there or give them the key,” to laughter from all.
Additional reporting by Erin Calabrese