People v. Smolen

On October 23, 1971 at about 5:00 p.m. on a crowded sidewalk in midtown Manhattan, a uniformed police officer was attempting to .serve a summons to a peddler who had set up a belt rack on the sidewalk opposite Bloomingdale’s department store; the peddler, without benefit of license, was purveying his belts to the passing throng. The defendant, a passer-by, observing the incident, opined that the peddler was being unjustly harassed by the policeman for doing nothing more heinous than engaging in his constitutional right of free enterprise.

Warming to his self-appointed role in defense of the…