Archive

The Radelet-Pierce is the first state-wide study of the role of race, ethnicity and geography in death sentencing in California. The authors reviewed all homicides that occurred in California from 1990-99, using records from the FBI and Vital Statistics. During this period, 302 death sentences were returned (close to half the number of people currently on death row in California). The study finds ... Read More

A federal judge announced today his intention to issue a preliminary injunction stopping the City of Fresno from unlawfully destroying the personal property of thousands of homeless residents. The lawsuit, Kincaid v. City of Fresno, was filed in October and claims that the City has been violating the constitutional rights of homeless people by seizing and immediately destroying their personal pro... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California has historically opposed civil gang injunctions because of their unfair impact on civil liberties, their potential for racial profiling, and due process concerns. In September 2006, the City Attorney of San Francisco sought the city's first civil gang injunction in the Bayview neighborhood.  On June 21, 2007, the city filed two new gang injun... Read More

Without any trial or due process, hundreds of West Sacramento residents of a predominantly Latino neighborhood were served a permanent "gang" injunction. In addition to challenging this injunction in a separate case, California v. Broderick Boys, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California is representing one such resident, a 28-year-old father, who was served by the injunction that imposes a life... Read More

Police use of Taser stun guns to subdue suspects in California and around the nation has increased dramatically in recent years. Billed by their manufacturer, Taser International, as a non-lethal alternative to deadly force, Tasers have been purchased and deployed by a growing number of law enforcement agencies. However, while the Taser is less deadly than a traditional firearm, it is hardly ... Read More

The New Haven Unified School District and the City of Union City have each reached groundbreaking settlements with students in Union City as a result of a federal lawsuit brought by the ACLU Foundation of Northern California on behalf of three high school students whose civil rights were violated. On February 22, 2002 the three were rounded up along with a group of mostly Latino and Asian students... Read More

On May 17, 2000, the ACLU Foundations of California, along with other civil rights organizations, filed a lawsuit against the State of California because of the terrible conditions in many of its public schools. We argued that the State is failing to provide thousands of public school students, particularly those in low income communities and communities of color, with the basic necessities req... Read More

For nearly 25 years, the California Department of Corrections (CDC) held an unwritten policy of segregating prisoners by race for, upon entry to a new facility. However, in February, 2005 the Supreme Court, in a 5-3 decision, declared this policy was not up to constitutional standards. The CDC implemented this policy in order to curb interracial violence. Upon entry to a new facility each... Read More

Should a criminal defendant have the burden of proving that a prosecutor's peremptory challenges to all of the Native American jurors in the jury pool were "predominantly" based on race or is it enough to show that one of the reasons for the challenges was based on racial stereotypes? Read More

This case challenged the threatened violation of the voting rights of thousands of California citizens, arising from the use of obsolete, unreliable, and discredited pre-scored punch card voting equipment in the election scheduled to take place on October 7, 2003 regarding the gubernatorial recall and the vote on Proposition 53 (Legislative Constitutional Amendment that would dedicate part of the ... Read More