Giuliani has artist arrested for the 41st time
ARTISTpres
by Robert Lederman
2/17/2000
I just got home from a 24 hour stay in the dungeon-like
Manhattan Criminal Courts’ Central Booking, popularly known
as The Tombs. My crime? Selling postcard versions of my
portraits of Mayor Giuliani outside the gates of City Hall.
The Mayor was considerate enough to have his pointman in the
war on street artists and vendors, Deputy Mayor Rudy
Washington, personally supervise the arrest along with NYPD
attorney Margaret Shields and to have me interrogated by the
NYPD Intelligence division’s Lt. Raymond Celentano and
Detective Gene Casserli while I was held at the First Precinct. [A
videotape of the arrest is available to the media.]
It should have been a routine three hour booking procedure
ending in the issuance of a summons after a warrant check,
fingerprints and a mug shot but according to two of the officers
involved in the arrest Police Commissioner Safir’s office called
and said, put him through the system.
After close to an hour of conferencing between NYPD lawyers
and brass about what “crime” to charge me with I was booked on
section 105b of the Parks Department’s rules which requires a
permit for vending within 500 feet of a NYC park. What’s
interesting about this is that in 1998 Manhattan Criminal Court
Judge Lucy Billings issued a ruling which declared 105b to be
both unconstitutional and a violation of the Laws of the City of
New York as applied to artists. While the City is appealing this
ruling Judge Billings’ finding is the law therefore no Manhattan
Criminal Court Judge can find an artist guilty of violating section
105b. None has since 1998. It’s also worth noting that in typical
Giuliani fashion Judge Billings, who was regarded as one of the
most respected, knowledgeable and intelligent judges in the
Manhattan Criminal Court system, was transferred to civil court
almost immediately after her ruling was published in the NY Law
Journal [see N.Y. Law Journal 8/17/98 Judge Refuses to Enforce
Permit Rule for Artists; N.Y. Times 8/18/98 Charges Are
Dropped in Sale of Art in Parks in New York (reproduced
below); N.Y. Post Editorial 8/20/98]. She’s lucky Jailiani didn’t
have her arrested and put through the system as well.
Central Booking is a windowless maze of underground holding
cells lacking in any system of ventilation which must have been
designed by an enthusiastic fan of medieval torture chambers.
Aside from graffitti the walls are covered with dire warnings
about Tuberculosis and the feeding schedule, i.e. when you get
your salami sandwich. Packed thirty to fifty to a cell, prisoners
are forced to lie on bare concrete floors. While my most recent
stay lasted 24 hours some of my fellow prisoners had been there
for two or three days when I arrived and were still there when I
was released.
The deliberate cruelty, unconstitutionality and illegality of this
arraignment system is evident when one considers that there is
actually no purpose for this booking procedure other than to
humiliate and punish. By the time a prisoner is brought to
Central Booking they have already spent from three to eight
hours being warrant checked, fingerprinted and photographed at
the local precinct they were arrested at. The time spent curled in
a fetal position on the bare concrete floor of Central Booking is,
for most defendants, already more punishment than is allowed by
law for the “crime” they are charged with. This calculated system
of punishment before arraignment might seem just if it were
being applied to already convicted murderers or rapists, but in
New York City murderers and rapists have their own far more
humane holding cells where they are also afforded more in the
way of constitutional rights. Instead, these bare steel cages are
used to hold the targets of Mayor Giuliani’s quality of life
campaign, a phony statistic-generating scam that is in itself the
City’s biggest crime wave.
If one were an alien space traveler who happened to beam down
into Central Booking one might conclude that New York City
was a place in which all criminals were black or brown. In Racist
Rudy’s Quality Of Life Police State white prisoners, like genetic
mutations, are a one in a million anomaly.
I’ve lived in New York City for most of my life. My fellow
light-skinned New Yorkers stand around in front of apartment
buildings, drink beer and smoke reefer as often as Black and
Latino New Yorkers do. Yet, when I’m incarcerated in Central
Booking, I never meet any white construction workers who were
arrested for sitting on a sidewalk while drinking beer with their
lunch nor any white men who were arrested and charged with
trespassing while visiting an acquaintance in a nearby apartment
house or with possession of a joint. These three “crimes” make
up the vast majority of the charges against those who end up in
Giuliani’s updated version of Central Booking.
In my opinion, the racism involved in the shooting of my fellow
vendor Amadou Diallo, like the obvious racism evident in the
selection process behind who ends up in Central Booking,
originates with those at the top like Giuliani and Safir who set
the racist policies that rank and file police are then ordered to
carry out. The four cops who pulled their triggers 41 times on
that fateful night were merely overdoing what they’d been taught
by the Giuliani administration; to treat all Black and Latino
males as armed and highly dangerous criminals and to disregard
any evidence to the contrary.
The tombs is indeed a very scary place. I can think of no more
degrading and depressing place to spend 24 hours of one’s life
than the windowless fluorescent nightmare that is New York
City’s Central Booking. If there’s any justice in life someday
NYC’s #1 criminal, Rudy Giuliani, will get to sample the City’s
hospitality first-hand on that hard concrete floor.
---------------------------------------------------------
Robert Lederman is an artist, a regular columnist for both the
Grenwich Village Gazette [See: http://www.gvny.com/ ] and
Street News, and is the author of hundreds of published essays
concerning Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. His essays and letters have
appeared in the NY Times, NY Post, Daily News, Newsday,
Brooklyn Bridge, Park Slope Courier, The Daily Challenge,
Amsterdam News, Sandbox, Penthouse, Our Town, NY Press
and are available on hundreds of websites around the world.
Lederman has been falsely arrested 41 times to date for his
anti-Giuliani activities and has never been convicted of any of the
charges. He is best known for creating hundreds of paintings of
Mayor Giuliani as a Hitler like dictator.
Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
(Artists’ Response To Illegal State Tactics)
ARTIS...@aol.com (718) 743-3722
http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html
Excerpted from: N.Y. Law Journal Monday 8/17/98
Judge Refuses to Enforce Permit Rule
for Artists
A New York City Parks Department rule requiring a $25 monthly
license to sell artwork, books or other written matter in the parks
or on sidewalks adjacent to the parks is not enforceable, a
Manhattan Criminal Court judge has ruled in dismissing
misdemeanor charges against three artists who were arrested for
unlicensed vending.
------------------------------
From: NYTIMES 8/18/98
Charges Are Dropped in Sale of Art in Parks in New York
By JOHN SULLIVAN
A Criminal Court judge has dismissed charges against several
artists who were arrested for selling art in city parks without a
license, saying that New York City law prevents city agencies
from licensing vendors who sell books and other written
material.
The ruling noted that the United States Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit has ruled that for legal purposes, art should be
considered a form of speech and afforded the same First
Amendment protections as speech and writing.
The three artists were arrested earlier this year after the Parks
Department began enforcing a $25 licensing fee for vendors
within the parks or on adjacent sidewalks. The fees prompted
protests by artists on the sidewalks at the Metropolitan Museum
of Art.
In an 18-page decision dated Wednesday, Judge Lucy Billings
found that the City Council had declared that vendors who
exclusively sell written material should be free from licensing
requirements.
Judge Billings, whose ruling was primarily based on city law
rather than Constitutional grounds, quoted a 1982 City Council
law that said, "It is consistent with the principles of free speech
and freedom of the press to eliminate as many restrictions on the
vending of written matter as is consistent with the public health,
safety and welfare."
Judge Billings went on to quote the Council's decision
specifically exempting vendors of written material from
licensing, then noted the Federal appellate ruling extending First
Amendment protection to art.
Last year, the city was forced to abandon its plan to regulate
artists who sold their works on public sidewalks. The Giuliani
administration had contended that street artists, like vendors
selling T-shirts, should be required to obtain permits.
The artists sued, and a ruling by the Federal United States
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled with them, saying
that artists are protected by First Amendment rights.
Referring to the city laws, Judge Billings wrote that Parks
Department regulations must be secondary to City Council
ordinances.
"The conclusion to be drawn from this expression of legislative
intent is inescapable," Judge Billings wrote. "Licensing is not a
permissible restriction on vending of written material under any
circumstances."
Judge Billings wrote that the blanket prohibition of licensing
should not be construed to eliminate the Parks Department's
ability to control vendors -- even vendors of written material --
inside the parks. In fact, the judge wrote, the city and the Parks
Department have "a wide array of permissible restrictions on
vending generally and vending of written material specifically, to
address concerns of public health, safety and welfare and to carry
out the purpose of the parks."
One of the defense lawyers, Diana Heller, said the ruling could
have important ramifications for the city.
Ms. Heller said the judge had affirmed the concept that city
laws as passed by the City Council are superior to administrative
regulations made under the authority of the Mayor.
"It is a very fundamental concept here, who can make law," Ms.
Heller said. "You have a balance of power; the Mayor can't just
do what he wants."
Ms. Heller said she believed the judge's ruling "has
ramifications for any similar city ordinance."
Tuesday, August 18, 1998
Copyright 1998 The New York Times
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, the NY Times
article above is distributed without profit or payment to those
who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information
for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
----------------------------------
Excerpted from: NY Times 2/17/2000
Drug Crackdown Is Overloading Court System With
Arraignments By DAVID ROHDE
A citywide antidrug crackdown that was spurred by higher crime
figures has swamped the court system over the last two
weekends, bringing a record number of arraignments to
Manhattan courts one night and leading to complaints that scores
of suspects were detained illegally for more than 24 hours.
The jump in arrests stems from Operation Condor, a $20 million
antidrug crackdown announced by the Police Department last
month to counter an increase in the city's homicide rate last year,
police officials said. The initiative, which pays narcotics officers
to work overtime to make arrests, mainly on weekends, has
generated 10,000 additional arrests since it started on Jan. 17.
In one sign of the impact on the courts, a Manhattan Criminal
Court judge arraigned a record 234 defendants in a 10-hour court
session Sunday night, triple the usual number and nearly double
the previous high for a night court. In addition, many of the
people arrested last weekend were held longer than legally
allowable.
In two formal complaints, the Legal Aid Society said that 226
prisoners in Manhattan on Feb. 7 had been held for more than 24
hours, including a 17-year-old held for more than 50 hours on a
trespass charge. On Monday, 122 prisoners had been held for
more than 24 hours in Brooklyn, according to the society.
Tony Elitcher, the Legal Aid lawyer who filed the complaint in
Manhattan, said that the backlog was the worst in the city in at
least a year. He said a 1998 Police Department policy of
restricting the issuing of tickets to people accused of minor
crimes was flooding the system. Under the new procedure, low
level offenders are jailed overnight, instead of being taken to a
precinct house, checked for outstanding arrest warrants and
issued a desk appearance ticket that requires them to appear later
in court.
Mr. Elitcher said that along with the 17-year-old charged with
trespassing, people accused of disorderly conduct, marijuana
possession and resisting arrest had spent over 50 hours in jail by
Feb. 6 and 7. "Why should you be in jail for 50 hours for
trespassing?" he asked. judgeships as valuable political
appointments, and they have been unable to reach a compromise
on increasing the number of judges around the state...
As a result, arraignment courts have emerged as a choke point in
the city's criminal justice system. With the number of
misdemeanor cases soaring by more than 70 percent under the
mayor's quality of life crackdown, judges must quickly arraign as
many cases as possible to prevent the system from backing
up...Defense lawyers dismissed Operation Condor, which they
have dubbed "the Buzzard," calling it excessive. Ms. Mode,
citing the recent drop in crime, said the crackdown would
continue indefinitely.