The state\u2019s highest court set a new standard this month for how police officers communicate with each other when making an arrest based on information in law enforcement databases.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If an officer wants to arrest someone based on information another officer has entered in an online database, they have to communicate, either verbally or in writing, with the officer \u2013 or with someone in the officier\u2019s bureau \u2013 who entered that information into the department\u2019s electronic system to ensure probable cause for the person\u2019s arrest actually exists, the New York Court of Appeals ruled<\/a> in an unanimous decision<\/a>, published last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n That, the court said, would ensure any arrest is actually made based on information police put in their internal database.\n<\/p>\n New York Law School professor Kirk Burkhalter called the decision, which reversed a lower court\u2019s ruling on the issue, an important one.\n<\/p>\n \u201cThis is really a check on police power to ensure the police are not overreaching with regards to the Bill of Rights, primarily the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments,\u201d said Burkhalter, who teaches criminal procedure courses. \u201cIt\u2019s actually, I think, very important.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s because police departments, particularly the NYPD, are constantly informed by various court decisions, said Burkhalter, who\u2019s also a retired NYPD detective.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis decision will eventually go to the New York State Police Department\u2019s legal division,\u201d Burkhalter said. \u201cWhich will, I guarantee you, put out some type of legal memo to all police officers recommending a certain standard of behavior with regards to [information sharing] and stopping folks \u2026 to ensure that police officers are operating consistently with this decision.\u201d<\/p>\n The decision stems from a 2017 case where NYPD officers arrested a Queens man after a note, referred to as an I-card, had been made in an online NYPD database by another officer stating that there was probable cause for the man\u2019s arrest. However, in court hearings, the detective who entered that information into the NYPD\u2019s system did not explain what information the I-card contained, how other officers were able to access it or whether the arresting officers had actually done so.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Queens man didn\u2019t dispute that the detective had probable cause to arrest him when the I-card was made, but argued that, because there was no evidence the detective had communicated with the officer who arrested him, there was no way to be certain the arresting officer actually arrested him based on the I-card, or the detective\u2019s evidence there was probable cause to arrest him.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Court of Appeals agreed with him, ruling that ensuring officers communicate with each other would ensure arresting officers actually receive and rely on the information communicated by an I-card.<\/p>\n \u201cThe district attorney\u2019s office really could not present a lot of information about any form of direct communication between the arresting officer and the detective,\u201d Burkhalter said. \u201cThere should be some effort to reach out to verify or get further information, even though there\u2019s probable cause. There was something missing here that gave the courts a moment of pause.\u201d<\/p>\n The Queens District Attorney\u2019s office, which prosecuted the case, told amNewYork Law it was \u201creviewing the decision\u201d in a statement and declined to comment further.\u00a0<\/p>\n Police frequently make arrests based on tips from other officers who have probable cause to arrest someone. Burkhalter said when he worked patrol shifts as a cop, he\u2019d ask detective squads in his area if they were currently looking for anyone they had probable cause to arrest. He\u2019d then make arrests based on the descriptions he\u2019d been given after hearing the detective\u2019s justification for the probable cause of their arrest.<\/p>\n That communication, he said, is what the Court of Appeals wants to ensure happens in every arrest case involving officers sharing information with each other.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t necessarily want a police state where someone sits on a computer and enters into the database, \u2018I have probable cause against Kirk Burkhalter,\u2019 for example, and a police officer goes to arrest Kirk Burkhalter without knowing any other information,\u201d Burkhalter said. \u201cWe want the police to talk a little bit more and just proceed with a little bit more diligence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The state\u2019s highest court set a new standard this month for how police officers communicate with each other…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[101,26427,2710,9,24,63,103,613,104,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-208781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-arrest","tag-court-of-appeals","tag-law","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-nypd","tag-pm-newsletter","tag-police","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}