PROPERTY OWNERS AND TENANTS CHEER COURT DECISIONS

 

NEWS CONFERENCE: NOON, JANUARY 6, 2006

OUTSIDE THE HALL OF JUSTICE ON EXCHANGE STREET, ROCHESTER.

Citizens of the City of Rochester have scored significant victories for their constitutional Rights to Privacy with recent decisions by City Court Judges Ellen Yacknin and Melchor Castro.

In the first, an eight page decision dated November 29, 2005, Judge Yacknin denied an application from Rodric Cox-Cooper, the outgoing Director of NET, for an “administrative” search warrant against the home of Steven Kelly at 345 Flower City Park in Rochester.

Judge Yacknin ruled that, while Mr. Cox-Cooper had obtained two previous warrants against Mr. Kelly’s home, there was no application pending for any permit or other City approval regarding that home. Under Rochester ’s Municipal Code, such an application is a prerequisite to a warrant application.

In the second decision, rendered on December 22, 2005, Judge Castro denied a motion by Rochester ’s Corporation Counsel to imprison Walter and Florine Nelson.  The Nelsons, a couple in their sixties, had politely declined to open their door to allow a search of their home under what they believe to be an illegal search warrant.  The Corporation Counsel’s office then moved to have the Nelsons imprisoned for contempt of the search warrant.

Judge Castro opined that the Nelsons’ polite refusal to open their door did not impede the police officers, and the Nelsons could not be held in contempt based on the officers’ commendable choice not to break the door.

Both Mr. Kelly and the Nelsons had argued that there is no provision for “administrative” search warrants under New York law, that the City lacked probable cause, that the warrants failed to particularly describe any things to be seized, and that Rochester ’s NET officers have no legal authority to obtain or execute search warrants.

The New York Legislature has considered several bills that would have provided City officials the authority to seek “administrative” search warrants.  All of those bills were voted down by the Legislature, one as recently as 2004.

In an earlier decision issued by Monroe County Supreme Court on July 27, 2005, Justice Thomas A. Stander vacated a search warrant against the home of Coalition member Larry Weekes issued by Rochester City Court Judge Thomas Rainbow Morse.  Justice Stander also issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the NET office from seeking “administrative” search warrants against Mr. Weekes’ home.

The NET office had obtained no less than three so-called “administrative” search warrants against Mr. Weekes’ home.  Like Mr. Kelly and the Nelsons, Mr. Weekes is not suspected of any crime.  Instead, the City argued that it may obtain search warrants to inspect city homes for code violations without showing any evidence, or even suspicion, that any violation exists.

The properties in all three cases are owned by members of the New York State Coalition of Property Owners and Businesses.  Since 2002, the NET office has obtained forty-six of these search warrants, which the Coalition maintains are illegal and unconstitutional.  Every one of these warrants has targeted a home owned or managed by a member of the Coalition.