Earlier this year, on May 18, I swore an oath to support the U.S. Constitution and the Constitution of the State of New York, to the best of my ability, as a newly admitted attorney and member of the New York state bar. By June 5, not only had that oath taken on entirely new and deeper meaning, but it seemingly had come in direct conflict with the law itself.

On June 1, in response to the unrest over the death of George Floyd, Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio declared a citywide curfew in New York City. According to information provided by the NYPD, between June 1 and June 7, the NYPD arrested 1,349 people in New York City for being out after curfew, mostly individuals engaged in peaceful protest. Each peaceful protester was issued a summons charging them with violating an emergency order, a Class B misdemeanor that carries a criminal record and potential six-month prison sentence. Notably, over 60% of the curfew-related summonses in that time period were issued to Black or Latinx people. I was one of them.

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