The NYTimes today has a story about a bare-breast-in-public gadfly.
Apparently in 1991 it became legal in NY for women to bare their chest in public, as long as it is “not for commercial purposes.” (Court decision here.)
According to the Times piece, since then the NYC Police Department periodically circulates a memo that Police Officers
“shall not enforce any section of law, including penal law sections 245.00 (public lewdness) and 245.01 (exposure of a person) against female individuals who are simply exposing their breasts in public.”
Huh? Those tasked with enforcing the law are explicitly told not to, which is breaking their oath, besides the law, if you ask me. Why isn’t the law in NY State changed?
The current practice is politically/constitutionally pernicious, in my opinion. Lawmakers do get paid for something; most have gotten off the stick about ones still on the books about butt sex or “oral sodomy,” for example.
It sounds like the NYPD is opting to not enforce laws/file charges for infractions that they’re pretty sure will get consistently dismissed, when the perpetrator contests it in court.
At least, that’s how it looks to me. (IANAL)
I’m pretty sure that it is a reminder to the NYPD that a woman simply being topless in public is not automatically guilty of either public lewdness or exposure of a person. Those two things are still crimes, but they require more than just being topless in public. There has to be more to it, like being topless in public for the express purpose of shocking/offending or doing it for “commercial purposes”.
Because it’s a court decision, and courts can’t create laws. They’ve just declared that one unconstitutional, and the police are being reminded that it’s been overturned for the specific exceptions the court allows. Actually making new laws requires the legislature, and they probably have better things to do.
Whether the overturned law can literally be removed from the books (i.e. the text stricken) based on a court ruling it invalid is probably a detail that changes from state to state, but in this particular case it sounds like the court is overturning a particular set of circumstances of the law, not the law in general.
It looks to me like TPTB are reminding street cops that simple exposure of female breasts are NOT violations of the penal law sections 245.00 (public lewdness) and 245.01 (exposure of a person). It’s not telling them not to enforce a law.
I guess Judges and ADAs are tired of wasting time dismissing cases against breast feeding women.
I don’t know why the OP is getting so worked up. Some laws on the books fly in the face of court decisions or run contrary to other laws. And the agencies involved have to make policies on what they’re going to do about it.
In the 70’s most states had laws making abortion a serious crime. After Roe V Wade those laws stayed on the books but, with some exceptions, were unenforceable.
Wisconsins ridiculous Disorderly Conduct statute could be applied to almost anything, including to what I’m posting here. I’m surprised that it’s vagueness was never found unconstitutional. Some agencies were using it to prosecute people openly carrying firearms, even though the practice is protected by the states constitution which is a contradiction between the tier of laws. After several law enforcement agencies lost expensive law suites over it, and an Attorney Generals memorandum on it, the legislature finally added a subsection to the statute explicitly declaring open carry is not DC!
I’ve been “The Police” for 31+years. We have to take certain accounts into consideration. If some old bag flopping her tits out isn’t going to be prosecuted/convicted of anything, why should we waste resources dealing with it? The OP has been around enough to know this!
Exactly. The police are not being told to break the law or to not enforce the law. They’re being told that a specific activity is not a violation of the law.
The legislature writes the laws and enacts them. The courts interpret what those laws really mean.
In this case, a plain reading of the law might give the impression to a layman that bare breasts in public is unlawful, but the court has said, no, it doesn’t mean that.