Legal Docket
For decades, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California has used the courts to protect and expand the rights of all Californians. From fighting against the internment of Japanese Americans, to suing California Highway Patrol for targeting Black and Latinx drivers, the ACLU is building a more just state one lawsuit at a time.
Case
Mejia v. Aitken (Immigration Detention)
Mar 13, 2013
On Feb. 6, 2013 the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, along with Bertha Mejia Espinoza's immigration attorney Rosy Cho, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, seeking Ms. Mejia's release from Yuba County Jail.On the basis of minor, nonviolent offenses primarily petty theft of food items, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement of the Department of Homeland Security (ICE) has...
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Case
Baker v. Katehi (UC Davis Pepper Spray Cop)
Jan 09, 2013
21 students and alumni filed a federal lawsuit on Feb. 22, 2012 against UC Davis over the University's treatment of protesters during a Nov. 18, 2011 demonstration in which campus police were caught on video dousing seated protesters with pepper spray.
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Case
Doe 1 v. California (Education Equity for English Learners)
Sep 14, 2012
The ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed suit charging that the Dinuba Unified School District and the State of California were violating students' fundamental right to equal educational opportunity.
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Case
ACLU v. FBI (Occupy Surveillance)
Aug 24, 2012
In early 2012, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed a Freedom of Information Act request to enforce the public's right to information about government surveillance of the political movement "Occupy Wall Street." But after the FBI failed to provided documents, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California sued. The lawsuit is ongoing.
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Case
Palmer v. West Contra Costa County Unified School District
Jun 12, 2012
The ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed suit on behalf of two concerned taxpayers against the West Contra Costa Unified School District, over conditions at district's Community Day School Program. The lawsuit seeks to compel the district to relocate its Community Day School Program (CDSP) and to provide adequate staffing, instructional materials, and legally required services to its stude...
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Case
People v. Buza (Mandatory DNA Collection)
Jun 01, 2012
The ACLU Foundation of Northern California has long been fighting against a provision of a 2004 California initiative (Prop. 69) that requires anyone arrested for a felony - including for crimes such as simple drug possession or joyriding - to provide a DNA sample that will be stored in a criminal database.
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Case
People v. Allen and Darocy
May 14, 2012
The ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed an amicus brief asking the Santa Cruz County Superior Court to dismiss felony conspiracy charges against two photojournalists who accompanied a group of activists into a vacant bank building. The journalists were arrested and charged with conspiracy, as well as trespass and vandalism, after they took and published photographs of the occupation.
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Case
ACLU Foundation of Northern California v. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Dec 20, 2011
On Nov. 17, 2010, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed a suit under the California Public Records Act to demand records from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) about its recent acquisition of sodium thiopental, a controlled substance used as part of California's lethal injection protocol for executing death row inmates.In late September, the CDCR as...
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Case
Committee for Immigrant Rights of Sonoma County v. Sonoma County (Law Enforcement Harassment of Latinos)
Dec 05, 2011
Lawsuit filed in 2008 by the ACLU Foundation of Northern California charging that local and federal law enforcement have been collaborating beyond the law to target, arrest, and detain Latino residents of Sonoma County.
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Case
Benjamin Brown v. Shasta Union High School District (Student Drug Testing)
Sep 06, 2011
Join the math team, take a drug test. That was the rule at the Shasta Union High School District, which enacted a policy requiring students to submit to random drug testing in order to participate in any school-sponsored activities, including choir, the science bowl, and the mock trial team. Mandatory suspicionless school drug testing, an approach promoted with fervor by the Bush Administration, v...
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Case
ACLU Foundation of Northern California and SF Bay Guardian v. Food and Drug Administration
Aug 11, 2011
On January 4, 2011, The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California (ACLU-NC) and The San Francisco Bay Guardian (The Guardian) submitted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests seeking records related to the federal government’s role in assisting – or failing to oversee – efforts by state corrections agencies to acquire controlled substances. The lethal injection drugs wer...
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Case
Harris v. LADA (Death Penalty Costs)
May 18, 2011
The office of Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley has failed to disclose public documents on the costs of prosecuting capital cases, according to a lawsuit filed today by The American Civil Liberties Union Foundations of California (ACLU Foundations of California) on behalf of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice (CHHIRJ) at Harvard Law School. The lawsuit is for publ...
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