A perp walk , walking the perp , [ note 1 ] or frog march Washington, D. English [ 1 ] is a practice in law enforcement of taking an arrested suspect, usually right after arrest, out in public, usually from the police station to the vehicle to the courthouse and then after the court hearing back to the vehicle, creating an opportunity for a media frenzy to take photographs and video of the event.
The defendant is typically handcuffed or otherwise restrained, and is sometimes dressed in prison garb. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani , when suspects charged with felonies were perp-walked. The perp walk arose incidentally from the need to transport a defendant from a police station to court after arrest. Law enforcement agencies often coordinate with the media in scheduling and arranging them. It has been criticized as a form of public humiliation that violates a defendant's right to privacy and is prejudicial to the presumption of innocence , but is defended as promoting transparency in the criminal justice system.
American courts have permitted it on the grounds that it arises from the limitations and necessity of police procedure, but have also limited it only to those times when it is actually necessary. In the United States, once a person has been charged with a crime, the government may request that a judge either issue a summons for that person or an arrest warrant , which can lead to a perp walk. The choice of which to request is largely at the discretion of the prosecutor.
Judges often defer to them. Since the arrest power is meant to ensure the defendant's presence in court, lawyers defending the white-collar criminals who have been perp-walked since the late s have complained it is unnecessary and superfluous in their clients' cases, even if it does give the appearance of preferential treatment for wealthy defendants.
This did not prevent another Houston -area defendant, former Dynegy natural gas trader Michelle Valencia, from undergoing a perp walk in After waiting all day for the indictment, her attorney told prosecutors she would return there the next morning.
