Archive

The District Attorney of Yolo County in late December 2004 sought a permanent injunction against the Broderick Boys “gang,” attempting to place on permanent probation, without any trial or due process, hundreds of residents of a predominantly Latino neighborhood in West Sacramento. In July 2005, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed a motion to set aside the permanent injunction for lac... Read More

In 2007, the California Court of Appeal declared that the permanent injunction imposed on a so-called gang in West Sacramento is void. The injunction could not stand because the County District Attorney failed to give adequate notice to those who would be affected by it. Read More

Jerry Miller, a former Army cook, spent nearly 25 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. In 1981, at the age of 22, Miller was tried and convicted for the brutal rape of woman in downtown Chicago. His conviction was based on what is now understood to be mistaken eyewitness identification. Read More

SAN FRANCISCO – The ACLU of Northern California, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request today seeking records relating to recent enforcement actions conducted by U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE). The ACLU-NC has requested expedited processing because of the urgency of this... Read More

Passengers in vehicles pulled over by the police have just as much right as drivers to challenge the legality of the traffic stop and its consequences, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled on June 18.In reversing the California Supreme Court, the high court essentially ruled that an unlawful traffic stop violates the rights of everybody in a vehicle – including passengers, not just the driver. Ever... Read More

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

In response to San Francisco's first request for a sweeping civil injunction against an alleged gang in the City’s Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, the ACLU of Northern California filed an amicus brief today asking the Court not to issue an injunction at the hearing on the topic next week. 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

A California father and son, who are both American citizens, were finally allowed to re-enter the U.S. on Sunday after being barred from returning when they refused to cooperate with the FBI. Read More