Artist Loses Suit Over Rally Arrests
October 31, 1999
BACKGROUND: Robert Lederman, an artist-activist frequently arrested at political protests, lost a lawsuit charging that police violated his rights when they hauled him in three times in 1995 and1996. Lederman has gained attention in recent years with protests against Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, whom he portrays in paintings as Adolf Hitler. In a lawsuit, he claimed that the city and five officers from Manhattan's First Precinct tried to silence him by arresting him on charges that were either dismissed or for which he was acquitted.
Source: Dan Janison. STAFF WRITER EDITION: QUEENS SECTION: NewsDATE: 10-29-1999
STATEMENT FROM ROBERT LEDERMAN: I will be appealing this verdict, therefore it's best if I am somewhat reserved about my public comments. Suffice it to say that the City's defense strategy was to focus almost completely on attacking my character rather than on the factual issue of probable cause in the three arrests in question. Influenced by the Corporation Counsel's highly dramatic but false presentation of me as public enemy #1 the jury apparently ignored all of the factual evidence in the case including photos of the arrests which refuted the police testimony, all of my witnesses' testimony and the testimony of the police officers themselves, which in most cases actually supported my claim that the arrests were made without probable cause. Despite days of testimony from police captains that established a concerted high-level political effort to pressure the NYPD into arresting artists in general and myself in particular, the jury also bought the City's "we're just doing our job" defense. While the judge allowed the City's attorney to present immaterial and imaginary things about my past, he refused to allow any testimony or evidence about the past actions of the police officers involved in these three arrests including their extensive records of Civilian Review Board complaints. The judge also refused to allow the inclusion of any official reports on police misconduct, political influence on the NYPD, mistraining of police officers, lying as part of the job, their tens of thousands of false arrests annually etc. The judge also refused to allow my extensive NYPD Intelligence file to be turned over to my attorney or to be entered in the case as evidence. The City was allowed to present numerous items of evidence and testimony about speeches I'd given, leaflets I'd designed and demonstrations I'd organized which had no relevancy whatsoever to the three arrests at issue in the case. By their own testimony the five police officers who were individual defendants all admitted to knowing me before the arrests, reading my literature, hearing me denounce the NYPD at rallies and discussing me with their supervisors and each other. They also all admitted to knowing that influential members of the SoHo community, including City Council Member Kathryn Freed, made countless complaints about me to the Mayor, the Police Commissioner, the DA, various police captains etc. and routinely sought my arrest.
As the saying goes, if you are guilty you want a jury trial if you are innocent you want a bench trial by a judge. Based on the evidence, even a judge whatever his predisposition would have had a hard time ruling in favor of the City in this case, while a jury had the freedom to ignore the law and the evidence and decide the case based on emotion.
Anyone who has attended A.R.T.I.S.T. demonstrations knows that before we start a protest I ask my fellow artist-demonstrators not to block pedestrian or vehicular traffic and not to interfere with the police in any way when they are making an arrest or are confiscating art. If holding up a sign, taking photos, making a speech critical of the NYPD or the Mayor, writing leaflets or merely walking across the street with other pedestrians is now a justifiable cause for arrest then there are no longer any First Amendment rights on the street of NYC. -RL
FROM: NY Law Journal 4/2/99
http://www.nylj.com/decisions/99/04/040299b9.htm
EXCERPTED from:
• Lederman v. Adams, Southern District, Judge Chin.
QDS:02760749.
LEDERMAN v. ADAMS
In this case, plaintiff Robert Lederman, an artist and president of the organization Artists' Response to Illegal State Tactics ("A.R.T.I.S.T."), was arrested on three separate occasions by police officers employed by defendant New York City Police Department (the "NYPD"). Lederman challenges these arrests on the basis that they were not supported by probable cause.
He further alleges that the police arrested him because he protested the arrest of artists purportedly for violating an ordinance, later declared unconstitutional by the Second Circuit, prohibiting artists from selling their artwork on the street without a vendor's license. Lederman asserts several causes of action, including civil rights violations under 42 U.S.C. §1983.
Defendants move for partial summary judgment. Because genuine issues of material fact exist for trial, defendants' motion is denied.
Lederman has presented sufficient evidence to demonstrate the existence of genuine issues of material fact as to whether the City had an informal policy to deny him and other artists their constitutional rights. The record contains evidence that policymakers, including the Mayor, the Police Commissioner, and the District Attorney, were pressured by the SoHo community and others to rid their streets of unlicensed vendors, including unlicensed artists and Lederman in particular, and that this pressure was relayed to the First Precinct. Further, plaintiff has presented evidence that certain police officers knew and disliked him because of his advocacy activities. Moreover, Lederman was thrice arrested and each time the charges were dismissed. Many of his paintings were destroyed and other artists were arrested as well. A jury could conclude, on the basis of this evidence, that there existed a municipal policy to drive the artists out of the SoHo community. Accordingly, the City's motion for summary judgment is denied.
Entire text of the 1996 2nd Circuit street artist ruling:
http://www.tourolaw.edu/2ndcircuit/october96/95-90
890.html
For information contact:
Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics), (718) 369-2111
Email: ARTISTpres@aol.com
Website: http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html