Jeez have they nothing better to do?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/nyreg ... ref=sloginALBANY, Oct. 17 — Millions of people have paused to stand amid the hustle, bustle and neon of Times Square.
But when Matthew Jones of Brooklyn lingered on the corner of 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue in the early morning of June 12, 2004, gabbing with friends as other pedestrians tried to get by, something unusual happened: He was arrested for it.
A police officer said Mr. Jones was impeding other pedestrians and charged him with disorderly conduct.
Mr. Jones is not taking the charges lying down (so to speak). After trying twice to get the charges dismissed, he has taken his case to the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, which heard arguments here on Wednesday.
In the prosecution’s view, it appears, the innocent do not dawdle. According to the original complaint against Mr. Jones, the officer “observed defendant along with a number of other individuals standing around” on a public sidewalk in June 2004. Mr. Jones was “not moving, and that as a result of defendants’ behavior, numerous pedestrians in the area had to walk around defendants.”
Mr. Jones refused to move when asked, said the officer, Momen Attia, and then tried to run away. When Officer Attia tried to handcuff him, he “flailed his arms,” earning a second charge for resisting arrest.
After spending the night in jail, Mr. Jones contested the main charge and asked that it be dismissed. When the judge demurred, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation the next day and received no further sentence. But he soon filed an appeal, arguing that there had been no basis for the arrest in the first place.
Nancy E. Little, Mr. Jones’s lawyer, said that neither the police nor the prosecutors claimed that he was doing anything other than standing on the sidewalk with friends — an activity, she said, that is not entirely without precedent in Manhattan.
“You need something more,” she said, citing past Court of Appeals decisions. “You need to be being verbally abusive, or really blocking lots of people, or lying down on the sidewalk.”
The complaint, she added, did not allege that any other pedestrians had been seriously inconvenienced or that Mr. Jones had shouted at or shoved anyone or even that the alleged obstruction was more than temporary. Prosecutors did not say how big Mr. Jones’s group of friends was, or how many people were forced to walk around them.
“Let’s face it — no allegations were presented that anything was about to happen,” said Ms. Little. (Mr. Jones himself could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.)
Paula-Rose Stark, a Manhattan assistant district attorney, argued that the facts in the complaint were sufficient for the charge of disorderly conduct. Mr. Jones’s reckless intent, Ms. Stark said, was evident from the fact that his behavior was noticeable in the first place “amid the inevitable hustle and bustle of Times Square, the construction, the vehicular traffic.”
As for other details, she said — well, perhaps Mr. Jones should not have pleaded guilty, depriving himself of a jury trial.
“Those are all matters left to be pursued at trial,” Ms. Stark said.
A lower court came to a similar conclusion last year, and by a vote of 2 to 1 upheld the arrest. But, in a glimmer of hope for Mr. Jones, the dissenting judge wrote that standing and talking with friends on the sidewalk, “even if it requires other pedestrians to walk around him, is commonplace in New York and not disorderly conduct.”
And on Wednesday, Mr. Jones’s circumstances appeared to reach a friendly audience before the Court of Appeals.
“Isn’t that lawful conduct?” wondered Judge Robert S. Smith. Later he added, “Your conduct can’t be illegal just because an officer noticed it.”
His colleague Judge Eugene F. Pigott Jr. questioned what other violations might attract law enforcement attention.
“All I could think of was a bunch of lawyers from the New York City Bar Association standing around trying to figure out where to have lunch,” Judge Pigott said. (The association has offices a block and a half from Times Square.)
Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye seemed likewise nonplused. “This is at 2 a.m.?” she asked, wondering how many pedestrians it would have been possible to inconvenience at that hour. “I guess I’m not in Times Square at 2 a.m. very often.”
The court is likely to rule on the case next month. Should it rule against Mr. Jones, the available evidence on the scene on Wednesday suggested that the police would soon have their hands full.
Just before 5 p.m., near the corner where Mr. Jones was arrested, stood the following assemblage: a man eating clams out of a Styrofoam container; two men smoking cigarettes together; a man waiting for a woman to finish a phone call; a guy looking at a map; a young woman sending a text message; two men handing out tour brochures; and a family of five, including an infant in a stroller, who stopped to look at the brochures.
Across the street stood Chaya Coppersmith, 18. “That’s just completely ridiculous,” Ms. Coppersmith said when told of Mr. Jones’s case. “Nobody can walk in Times Square. Everyone’s standing around in Times Square. That’s what it’s for.”