Archive

The Berkeley City Council has adopted a resolution calling on the District Attorney of Alameda County to stop pursuing the death penalty and to focus instead on investing public resources in solving homicides, preventing violence, and expanding public safety programs. Read More

The ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC) today filed a California Public Records Act request seeking to prompt the San Jose Police Department (SJPD) to release police reports relating to all 2007 arrests for public intoxication. The formal request for the reports stems from the recent revelation, reported in the San Jose Mercury News, that the SJPD arrests people for alleged public drunkenness at... Read More

San Francisco – For the past three years, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department has collaborated with the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its officers to stop and search people who appear to be Latino, interrogate them about their immigration status based on their perceived race, and detain them in the County jail without lawful authority. The Sheriff’s Department and... Read More

"We didn't do anything wrong," said Victor Lopez, one of the Latino students at Rodriquez High School (RHS) who in March 2007 were lined up in front of their peers, accused of being gang members, and photographed by Fairfield police. "I was just talking to my friends. The police shouldn't assume we're gang members just because we're Latino and wearing certain colors. Lots of kids were wearing the ... Read More

The California corrections department is using underground, non-public guidelines, rather than lawful regulations, to decide whether to transfer California prisoners to other states as far away as Mississippi and Tennessee. This means that inmates and their families do not know how the prisons decide whom to transfer. It also leaves open the possibility that prison officials are using arbitrary an... Read More

The first comprehensive study of California’s death penalty was released today by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice (CCFAJ), a nonpartisan statewide advisory board. The 116 page report highlights a myriad of problems, including the failure to adequately fund defense counsel for poor people facing death sentences, a decades-long appeals process, and the risk that inno... Read More

Today, a federal judge approved a $2 million class-action settlement in favor of hundreds of homeless Fresno residents. The court had already determined that Fresno’s practice of immediately seizing and destroying the personal possessions of homeless residents violates the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. “The Court’s ruling and the settlement should send a str... Read More

ACLU of Northern California and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights (LCCR) of the San Francisco Bay Area filed alawsuit on June 2, 2008, to compel U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to comply with a request for documents under the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The FOIA request stems from concerns over alleged violations of law and due process during immi... Read More

San Francisco - The ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC) and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights (LCCR) today filed a lawsuit to compel Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to comply with a request for documents under the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The FOIA request stems from concerns over alleged violations of law and due process during immigration raids undertaken ... Read More

When the ACLU of Northern California learned in October of 2006 that the City of Fresno was violating the constitutional rights of its homeless residents by seizing and immediately destroying their possessions, we, along with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and the law firm of HellerEhrman LLP, filed a class-action lawsuit in federal district court. The following are excerpts from decla... Read More