Legal Docket

A class action settlement ending the blanket policy of shackling adult detainees in immigration court, regardless of their history or capacity for disruption. Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California and NCYL have charged school officials in two Humboldt County towns with intentionally discriminating against Native American and Black students by allowing the pervasive racial and sexual harassment of these students to go unchallenged. Read More

In 2010, Long Beach officers shot and killed Douglas Zerby when they mistakenly believed the garden hose nozzle he was holding was a gun. A concerned LA Times journalist requested the names of the officers involved under the CA Public Record Act, but the requested information was not disclosed. Read More

In 1996, the people of California passed an initiative to ensure that “seriously ill Californians have the right to obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes.” This initiative (Proposition 215), as well as a later law passed by the Legislature (S.B. 420), makes it clear that California patients and their caregivers can grow and cultivate marijuana for medical use. However, at the end of 2013 t... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed a lawsuit against the City and County of San Francisco and San Francisco Police Chief Gregory Suhr on March 20, 2013 challenging the warrantless searches of cell phones of individuals who have been arrested. The suit was brought on behalf of a civil rights activist, Bob Offer-Westort, whose cell phone was searched by the San Francisco Police Departm... Read More

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... Read More

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. Read More

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. Read More

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. Read More

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... Read More

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. Read More

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. Read More