New York: Matthew Jones has asked the Court of Appeals to overturn a disorderly conduct conviction he received as a result of standing around talking to friends in Times Square at 2 am on the 12th of June, 2004.

Police asked Jones to move because people "had to walk around him". Jones refused and was arrested. His lawyer claimed that the arrest was without legal justification, saying that you would need to be verbally abusive or blocking a lot of people.



SOURCE

serves that asshole right. I hope he dies

Disorderly Conduct is only a violation. PL 240.20. It's not even a misdemeanor. By law, the record is sealed and cannot be disclosed (with limited exceptions.) CPL 160.55.

I don't know who's nuttier here: The Cops for starting it, The DA for pursuing it or the Defendant for appealing a sealed case all the way up to Albany. All I know is, it's a tremendous waste of money all around.

I don't like people who stand in my way

Roll 'em over, babe. Roll 'em over!!

That is annoying as hell in midtown. I would imagine in Times Square it could be the set up for a pickpocket: the shill(s) intentionally stands in the way of people trying to cross the street. Another guy 'bumps' into the street crosser while they're trying to get around the shill. That may be what the cop was thinking.

At 2AM?

Sure, there are more people there than there used to be - sometimes a surprising amount - but it's not THAT bad.

The idiot decided to ignore a cop and the cop decided to show his power.

he was black right?

if not this is totally unjust

It would be annoying if the street was really busy and theres this peabrain standing there who's got nothing better to do than try and annoy people by standing in their way. I don't know what the actual circumstances were but it may have been he was acting like a jerk. He was probably some obese 600 pound guy as well. I hate how fat people often try to take up as much space as possible - like they like being fat and want to be fatter. If they're blocking an aisle and there's room for people to walk around them they will try and block the space somehow so you have to go back the way you came and try a different aisle or actually ask them to move

I could not figure out how find the bill at that site, but if you can be "tried" and held at risk of a fine by the state and not able to disclose the record to the public even afterwards doesn't that become a secret trial?

I'm too tired to look up the legislative memorandum right now, but that statute was based, nearly verbatum on another statute (CPL §160.50) that seals records when a case "terminates in favor of the accused" i.e. the defendant is acquitted or the case is dismissed. The intent there was to protect the acquitted from the stigma of their case.

Similarly, 160.55 was passed to protect people from stupid, petty bullshit that happened long ago. It was passed in the mid-to-late '70s, IIRC, at a time when the kids of the 60s were grown up and looking for real jobs only to be confronted with a ticket for discon from some demonstration 10 years prior, or smoking a joint in the park, and having that as an impediment to getting a real job.

When I was the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) Officer at a certain Govenment Agency, I'd get calls all the time from people, now in middle age, who are changing jobs and all of a sudden a doob they toked thirty years ago has come back to haunt them because some of the records had been improperly sealed, or rather not sealed at all.

The prohibition against secret trials is to protect the accused. So in that sense, the statute does not run afoul of the public interest.

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He was probably some obese 600 pound guy as well. I hate how fat people often try to take up as much space as possible - like they like being fat and want to be fatter.

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UPDATE. From NYT

Conviction for Standing in Times Sq. Is Overturned



The Court of Appeals, New York State’s highest court, threw out the conviction yesterday of a man who was arrested for standing and not moving on a Times Square corner in 2004.

The man, Matthew Jones, was on the corner of 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue in the early morning of June 12, 2004, chatting with friends as other pedestrians tried to get by.

As a result of Mr. Jones’s behavior, “numerous pedestrians in the area had to walk around” him and his friends, the arresting officer, Momen Attia, wrote. Mr. Jones refused to move when asked, Officer Attia later wrote, then tried to run away. Mr. Jones was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

After spending the night in jail, Mr. Jones sought to have the charges dismissed the next day, but his motion was rejected. He then agreed to plead guilty to one count of disorderly conduct and was sentenced to time served. He immediately filed an appeal.

The conviction was upheld by an appellate court, but yesterday, the Court of Appeals unanimously reversed that decision. Writing for the court, Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick concluded that the allegations in the document used to charge Mr. Jones did not meet the burden of factual proof required.

“Nothing in the information indicates how the defendant, when he stood in the middle of a sidewalk at 2:01 a.m., had the intent to or recklessly created a risk of causing ‘public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm,’” Judge Ciparick wrote.

She later added: “Something more than a mere inconvenience of pedestrians is required to support the charge.

“Otherwise, any person who happens to stop on a sidewalk — whether to greet another, to seek directions or simply to regain one’s bearings — would be subject to prosecution under this statute.”

Stupidest law ever unless this includes arresting all the screaming douchenozzles standing in line outside TRL.

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court is the intermediate court in New York State. The Court of Appeals is the highest court. The Supreme Court is actually the trial court.

Leave it to New York Lawyers to be so backwards-assed.

The streets of nyc are free and clear of jim b because he's posting 20 times a day here instead.