
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.
American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California v. Vallejo Police Department (Police misconduct)
Nov 22, 2022
The ACLU of Northern California has filed a lawsuit to compel the city of Vallejo to release public records that contain information about officers in the Vallejo Police Department who allegedly bent their badges after on-duty shootings as a badge of honor.
Read More
Yesue et al v. The City of Sebastopol
Oct 26, 2022
The ACLU Foundation of Northern California, Disability Rights Advocates, Legal Aid of Sonoma County, and California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Sebastopol for enacting an ordinance that prohibits vehicles “designed or altered for human habitation” from parking anywhere within city limits during the day.
Read More
Simon et al v. The City and County of San Francisco, Sheriff Paul Miyamoto
Sep 30, 2022
The ACLU Foundation of Northern California and the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati filed a class-action lawsuit to prevent the San Francisco Sheriff's Office from requiring that individuals agree to unconstitutional “four-way” searches and GPS location data-sharing as conditions of pretrial release on electronic monitoring.
Read More
Coalition on Homelessness v. City and County of San Francisco
Sep 27, 2022
On September 27, 2022, the Coalition on Homelessness and seven individual plaintiffs filed suit against the City and County of San Francisco and Mayor London Breed for their efforts to criminalize homelessness through an array of brutal policing practices that violate the constitutional rights of unhoused San Franciscans. Plaintiffs are also seeking a preliminary injunction to stop these practices...
Read More
Mathis et al v. County of Siskiyou and Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue
Aug 03, 2022
For years, Siskiyou County officials and the Siskiyou Sheriff’s Department have threatened, targeted, and intimidated Hmong American and other Asian American community members in an effort to isolate them and drive them out of the region. A new class action lawsuit led by four Asian American community members details how county officials have waged a systematic campaign of racist hostility and per...
Read More
Echeveste v. Jones (Unlawful ICE Transfers)
Nov 16, 2021
On Nov. 15, 2021, our organization, along with co-counsel Conrad | Metlitzky | Kane LLP , sued Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones and Sacramento County for unlawfully transferring immigrants to ICE custody. Internal documents show that sheriff’s officials illegally transfer immigrants to ICE after they have completed their county jail sentences, rather than releasing them to their families and ...
Read More
Bahena v. ICE (Immigration Detention)
Mar 26, 2020
Thirteen detained immigrants at risk of a potentially fatal COVID-19 infection sue ICE, demanding their release
Read More
Aleman Gonzalez v. Sessions (Immigration Detention)
Jan 10, 2020
In March of 2018, two Bay Area fathers who had been detained for over six months at the Contra Costa West County Detention Facility in Richmond, California sued the federal government in a class action lawsuit challenging their unlawful and prolonged detention. Complaint is here.
On June 5, 2018, a federal judge ruled that people who have been detained under 8 U.S.C. 1231(a)(6) cannot be held ...
Read More
ACLU of Northern California v. Stockton Unified School District (School to Prison Pipeline)
Feb 15, 2019
In June, 2016, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California sued the Stockton Unified School District (SUSD) for violating state and federal law by refusing to release SUSD's Police Department student arrest and citation data. A Public Records Act request by the ACLU revealed that from 2012-2016, the SUSD police department filed 12,000 “incident reports." However, in response to the ACLU's request, ...
Read More
Center for Genetics and Society, et al. vs. Rob Bonta, et al.
Dec 10, 2018
Lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court challenging the state of California for its retention of genetic samples and profiles from people arrested but never convicted of a felony.
Read More
ACLU v. Visalia Unified (Discrimination at School)
Dec 03, 2018
On October 24, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed a discrimination complaint on behalf of Black students in the Visalia Unified School District who have faced ongoing racial hostility.
The complaint, filed with the Office for Civil Rights within the Department of Education, charges the district with violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by creating a racially hostile ...
Read More