In the recently concluded presidential debate, Donald Trump said Chicago's soaring murder rate could be cut by implementing a stop and frisk policy and that such a policy did wonders to reduce New York City's crime rate.  Thereupon, debate moderator and liberal media fact-checker Lester Holt interjected and informed the 100 million viewers watching the debate that stop and frisk is unconstitutional.

Sorry, but the Holt was wrong.

To begin with, Trump was correct in noting that stop and frisk was effective in reducing crime, particularly violent gun-related crime in New York City.  Looking at the evidence, former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani claims that this policy played a major role in reducing crime in the Big Apple by 85% from 1994 to 2014.  As Giuliani says, stop and frisk helped transform New York from being the crime capital of America to one of the safest cities in the country.  And since six out of ten murder victims in New York tend to be black, stop and frisk saved the lives thousands of African-Americans.

As to the constitutionality of stop and frisk, as Rudy Giuliani aptly points out:

Stop and frisk is based on an 8-1 decision by the Supreme Court, Terry v. Ohio. That ruling hasn't been overturned or even modified by the court since it was handed down in 1968. Stop ad frisk is constitutional and the law of the land. The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, approved the constitutionality of stopping a suspect if te police officer as a reasonable suspicion tat a person has committed , or was about to commit, a crime. If the officer also has a reasonable suspicion the person is armed, he can conduct a pat-down -- that is, a frisk -- of a person's outer clothing.

In may places, this practice is called a 'Terry stop,' based on the decision upholding its constitutionality. it is a police technique used by all law enforcement agencies nationwide.

Critics of stop and frisk think they have wiggle room to obscure the issue with a 2013 federal court ruling that said New York City's application of stop and frisk violated the Fourth Amendment rights of minorities.  To be clear, this ruling applied to New York City and New York City alone.  This ruling, handed down by Judge Shira Scheindlin, a 1994 Clinton appointee, is no doubt what Holt had in mind when he chastised Trump during the debate.

But that not the end of the story.

As The Wall Street Journal reported:

The federal judge in the stop and frisk case was Shira Scheindlin, a notorious police critic whose behavior got her taken off the case by the Second Circuit of Appeals. The appellate court put it this way:

'Upon review of the record in these cases we conclude that the District Judge ran afoul of the code of conduct for United States Judges ... and that the appearance of impartiality surrounding this litigation was compromised by the District Judge's improper application of the Court's 'related case rule' ….

Continuing:

In a follow up opinion, the appellate court judges cited a New Yorker interview with Judge Scheindlin that included a quote from a former law clerk saying, ''what you have to remember about the judge is that she thinks cops lie."

In other words, the court decision against NYC's stop and frisk was tainted with judicial bias and incompetence.  

The appellate court then handed the case to an impartial judge.  But as luck would have it, Mayor Bloomberg was replaced by über-left-wing Mayor Bill de Blasio, who decided not to appeal the original court decision.  (Who says elections don't count?)

How many people knowing the full story would think Trump was wrong on stop and frisk during the debate?  Not many.  How may people would put a dunce cap on Lester Holt?  Quite a few.

There are sins of omission and sins of commission.  By not telling the full story of stop and frisk, Lester Holt committed a grave sin of omission – leaving out relevant facts.  He also committed many sins of commission by inserting himself in the presidential debate in the constant biased way he did.

Sadly, no matter how foolish Holt looks in a post-debate analysis, he accomplished his mission.  He poisoned the minds of millions watching the debate by giving the false impression that 1) Trump does not know what he's talking about and 2) stop and frisk is unconstitutional.