Federal judge certifies class action in NY panhandler lawsuit News
Federal judge certifies class action in NY panhandler lawsuit

[JURIST] US District Judge Shira Scheindlin of the Southern District of New York Tuesday certified a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of approximately 5,000 to 10,000 suspected panhandlers against 553 law enforcement agencies in New York state. The lawsuit alleges that the agencies illegally arrested or forced individuals off public property using a state anti-loitering law that was invalidated in 1992. Scheindlin, who expressed her concern at New York's continued enforcement of the law despite federal rulings striking it down, said that allowing the class action to proceed was the only effective method to ensure that state authorities stop enforcing the law.

In 1992, Judge Robert W. Sweet ruled that the law [NY Penal Law Sec 240.35(1) text] prohibiting loitering for the purposes of begging, violates the First Amendment because begging constituted a "protected communicative conduct" in traditional public forums. The ruling was upheld on appeal in 1993 by the US Court of Appeals for the Second District. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

White supremacists overthrow government in Wilmington, North Carolina

A group of white supremacists overthrew the government of Wilmington, North Carolina on November 10, 1898, killing at least dozens of Black people in the process. The city's Republican government resigned after the 500-2,000 strong white mob burned the offices of a Black-owned newspaper and terrorized black neighborhoods. The new state Democratic government passed laws in 1899 disenfranchising Black voters across North Carolina. Learn more about the 1898 Wilmington Coup.

Supreme Court limited free speech in wartime

On November 10, 1919, the US Supreme Court ruled in Abrams v. United States that the federal government could criminalize speech if it was of a type tending to bring about harmful results, in this case, resistance to the United States war effort. In a powerful dissenting opinion, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes countered that even during wartime, free speech could only be curtailed when there was clear and "present danger of immediate evil or an intent to bring it about."

Leonid Brezhnev dies

On November 10, 1982, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev died of a heart attack. He had served as leader of the USSR from October 1964 until his death. Following his death, the Soviet Union cycled through three more leaders during the 1980s until Mikhail Gorbachev allowed the country to dissolve in 1991. Read an obituary of Leonid Brezhnev from the New York Times.