Court Cases

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.

TSA employees at two different airports subjected Malaika Singleton to unreasonable, discriminatory searches of her hair within a week - because she is black.

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.

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.

Lawsuit filed in 2008 by the ACLU Foundation of Northern California charging that local and federal law enforcement have been collaborating beyond the law to target, arrest, and detain Latino residents of Sonoma County.

Should the police be able to follow you around and collect and analyze your DNA from something you discard, without a warrant or even a reason to believe you have committed a crime? 

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California submitted an amicus brief in The People of the State of California vs. Norteño, urging the Solano County Superior Court to limit the overly broad scope of a gang injunction proposed by the City of Fairfield. The ACLU of Northern California brief expressed concerns with several aspects of the injunction, including the potential for racial profiling and the ability of the police to serve the injunction on an individual without presenting clear and convincing evidence of gang membership and without court approval. On July 24, 2009, a preliminary injunction was granted, and a number of ACLU Foundation of Northern California's recommendations were adopted.