TO "SENSATIONALIZE AND ENHANCE"
Southern District Judge Denny Chin was in the news twice yesterday. First, The New York Law Journal reports that Chin has allowed the major claims in a lawsuit to go forward against NBC. The plaintiff is the sister of a man who committed suicide after being targeted by the controversial “Dateline” television show “To Catch a Predator.” The network, along with a Swat Team, had stationed itself outside the home of former Texas prosecutor and suspected pedophile Louis William Conradt, Jr. He subsequently shot himself. NBC had claimed its conduct was not “extreme and dangerous” — a standard required under Texas law for intentional infliction of emotional distress. But Chin found there was sufficient evidence to suggest otherwise, writing, “Rather than merely report on law enforcement's efforts to combat crime, NBC purportedly instigated and then placed itself squarely in the middle of a police operation, pushing police to engage in tactics that were unnecessary and unwise, solely to generate more dramatic footage for a television show.” He said a jury could find “that there was no legitimate law enforcement need for a heavily armed SWAT team to extract a 56-year-old prosecutor from his home when he was not accused of actual violence and was not believed to have a gun,” and that this was done solely “to sensationalize and enhance" the entertainment value of the arrest and "creating . . . a substantial risk of suicide or other harm.”

SHUTTING A SAD CHAPTER 
In 2005, Judge Chin allowed another lawsuit to go forward — a class action suit brought by African American and Hispanic employees of New York’s Department of Parks and Recreation. That suit alleged discriminatory hiring practices under the leadership of former commissioner, Henry J. Stern. As reported by The New York Times, yesterday New York City opted to settle the suit for $20 million, shutting a sad door in its employment history. “This is a vindication for many men and women who stood up against a system at the parks department that sought to marginalize them because of their race or their national origin,” said Robert Stroup of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which provided lawyers for the plaintiffs. Under terms of the settlement, the city will award back pay and compensatory damages for 3,500 current and former employees. It also agreed to new pay scales, promotion practices and oversight procedures.  

PLANTING PRINTS 
The Staten Island Advance has an A.P. thread about a decision by Court of Claims Judge Nicholas Midey, Jr., that found New York State liable for malicious prosecution. At issue was the case of Shirley Kinge, who was framed by State Police investigating murder charges against her son. But Kinge’s conviction for helping her son destroy evidence — he was later shot to death by police — was tossed out when it came to light that an investigator had planted her fingerprints on a gasoline can supposedly used in a fire at the home of four victims. The ruling said that although Kinge “should be ashamed of her criminal conduct” for using the victims’ stolen credit cards, “such criminal conduct cannot be used as a shield by the State Police to either justify or excuse their actions.”

SEAN BELL, DAY TWO
And finally, day two of the Sean Bell murder trial featured testimony from Bell’s father, William, who joined his son at a Queens strip club on the evening of his death. The New York Times is blogging all week from Queens Supreme Court, and readers are weighing in with countervailing thoughts on the series of events leading up to Bell’s death. Our own Leah Nelson has weighed in, meanwhile, with a trenchant profile of Justice Arthur Cooperman.