NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City violated the U.S. Constitution for more than two months in 2001 with a policy to detain arrested protesters overnight instead of giving them summonses to appear in court, a U.S. federal jury found on Monday. The suit stemmed from the city's handling of the mass protests and arrests in New York immediately after the 1999 killing by police of unarmed Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo, who was hit by 19 shots.
An eight-person jury in Manhattan federal court found that the city's police department violated the First Amendment right to free speech and the 14th Amendment right to due process between May 1, 2001, and July 13, 2001, by its policy of locking up protesters overnight in city jails.
However, the same jury ruled that the 350 protester plaintiffs failed to show that in the two years before 2001 the city followed an unwritten policy of locking up protesters.
"It's not the victory we wanted, but certainly it's a victory for the 30 plaintiffs who alleged they were discriminated against by the police department for those more than two months," said Jonathan Moore, a lawyer for the protesters.
Susan Halatyn, a city attorney, said the decision was a victory for the city.
"We are very pleased that, after hearing and carefully considering all the evidence, the jury understood that the city never had an unwritten policy to deny demonstrators equal treatment under the law," Halatyn said.