Judge won’t dismiss suit challenging police-as-prosecutors
NEW YORK — A New York judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by two women trying to stop police lawyers from serving as prosecutors in their low-level cases and others like them, suggesting the arrangement was filled with ethical problems.
The women were arrested in 2016 protesting police brutality at a Black Lives Matter demonstration. Arminta Jeffryes was charged with jaywalking; Cristina Winsor, disorderly conduct.
Their cases were sent to a summons court that usually has no prosecutors at all and handles tens of thousands of cases a year. But New York Police Department lawyers stepped in to handle the charges, a practice that’s emerged in the last two years.
While many similar cases get dismissed without any admission of guilt, attorneys for the women say the NYPD lawyers wouldn’t agree to a dismissal unless they said their arrests were legitimate. The women refused and are headed for trial next week. They separately sued to stop the arrangement between the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the NYPD.