Legal Docket

The CA Supreme Court has agreed to review a case that could have allowed people to censor online speech without even giving the website’s owner an opportunity to come to court to defend itself. Read More

On June 7, 2016, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed a suit under the California Public Records Act demanding that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) release information about people serving life sentences for crimes committed as juveniles. Read More

Most immigrants who are detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") and placed in deportation proceedings are eligible for release on bond. Under a broad and incorrect interpretation of federal law, however, each of the named plaintiffs in this case has been denied the opportunity to challenge his detention while deportation proceedings are pending. Read More

The ACLU of Northern California filed a lawsuit against the City of Hayward and its Police Department for charging the National Lawyers Guild unlawful and excessive costs as the price of disclosing body camera footage the NLG requested under the California Public Records Act. Read More

ACLU of Northern California, along with a coalition of legal organizations, has brought suit against Solano County Superior Court, challenging the court’s practice of suspending the driver’s licenses of people who are too poor to pay exorbitant traffic fines. In California, millions of people do not have valid driver’s licenses because they cannot afford to pay traffic fines and fees. In 2015, ove... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed a suit under the California Public Records Act to demand records from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation related to lethal injection. The ACLU Foundation of Northern California issued this request for documents in advance of the department's promulgation of a new, one-drug lethal injection protocol, so that the ACLU Foundati... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed a lawsuit against Dignity Health for the hospital chain’s use of religious directives to deny basic reproductive health care to its patients. The suit argues that withholding pregnancy-related care for reasons other than medical considerations is illegal in California. Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California has filed a a lawsuit challenging the failure to provide adequate legal representation to criminal defendants throughout Fresno County who are unable to afford an attorney. Read More

ACLU Foundation of Northern California has settled a lawsuit with the Manteca Unified School District after two high school officials chastised and censored a student for wearing a shirt to school identifying herself as a proud member of the LGBT community. Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California today asked the Supreme Court of California to provide justice to people unlawfully sentenced as teenagers to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed suit against the City and County of Fresno over complete bans on the cultivation and storage of medical marijuana. The bans are inconsistent with California’s 1996 voter-approved Compassionate Use Act, which allows seriously ill patients and caregivers to grow medical marijuana, and also with more recent legislation. The City and County also have ba... Read More

The ACLU is challenging a Fresno County ban on the cultivation and storage of medical marijuana in the California Supreme Court. The ban is inconsistent with California’s 1996 voter-approved Compassionate Use Act, which allows seriously ill patients and caregivers to grow medical marijuana. Read More