Archive

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter today announced that the U.S. armed forces will open all combat jobs, units, and schools to qualified women beginning next year, making no exceptions for any branch of the armed services. Read More

Four servicewomen and the Service Women's Action Network, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California and the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, filed an amended complaint in their lawsuit against the Department of Defense for its ongoing blanket exclusion of women from thousands of ground combat positions. 

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Under Gov. Brown’s Criminal Justice Realignment plan, responsibility for 20,000 low-level state prisoners was shifted to county sheriffs. California counties can apply for funding to pay for the influx of new inmates in county jails. Review the county applications here. Read More

The ACLU today sent a letter demanding that Dignity Health, doing business as Mercy Medical Center Redding, a Catholic-affiliated hospital in California’s largest hospital network, stop unlawfully denying post-partum tubal ligation to patients based on religious doctrine. Read More

Not only has the Orange County Sheriff’s Department been secretly facilitating efforts by jailhouse informants to elicit statements from fellow inmates, but the Orange County District Attorney’s office appears to have systemically concealed evidence about these informants from defense attorneys, including evidence that would exonerate defendants. Read More

A few weeks ago, Alameda County Sheriff Ahern requested authorization from the Board of Supervisors to upgrade the county’s StingRay surveillance equipment. Today, the Board again postponed the decision in order to develop a use-policy. Read More

Today the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling which had found California’s death penalty unconstitutional. But although death penalty proponents may be claiming a big victory, today’s ruling is just another example of how dysfunctional California’s death penalty system is. Read More

Immigration agents wanted Heleno to sign a document that would've resulted in his immediate deportation. So they forced him. Read More

Last Friday, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) made public proposed regulations on a new lethal injection protocol. This triggered the public comment period under California’s Administrative Procedures Act (APA), which ensures the public has a right to participate in every step of the regulatory process so that our concerns are addressed in a meaningful way. Read More

In June, Fresno County Sheriff Mims allowed ICE agents to be stationed inside the local jail, stirring fear in a community she vowed to protect. Read More