News & Commentary

Over the course of 26 months, the federal government wasted over $100,000 to incarcerate this grandmother of eight with no serious or violent criminal history. Every day, U.S. Customs and Immigration is forced to fill 34,000 beds in the immigration prison system -- regardless of how many people actually warrant detention. This policy is wasteful and inhumane.

Solitary confinement can eat away at someone's mind, making mental illness worse and leaving many people depressed, suicidal, hopeless or hallucinating. It's no place for individuals with mental illness.

The ACLU of Northern California is saddened and troubled by the tragic shooting of 13-year-old Andy Lopez by a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy. It is imperative that there be a robust and transparent review of this incident, including the public release of any and all findings resulting from the investigation of any law enforcement agency into this shooting.

The ACLU of Northern California urges Santa Clara County to keep its current immigration detainer policy and to reject the District Attorney's recommendation to adopt a policy that would allow enforcement of immigration detainers under certain circumstances.

The ACLU of California took a position on over 118 bills before the legislature. This year stands as one of the most robust in advancing our civil liberties: the governor signed into law 12 of our priority bills.

Today is a frustrating day in California. Despite huge overwhelming support from California voters from across the state and political spectrum, Gov. Jerry Brown has vetoed an historic sentencing reform bill that was sent to his desk with bipartisan support in the state Legislature.

Comedian and actor David Moss fell into hard times with a drug addiction that immediately became a struggle he couldn’t overcome. Addiction had landed him in a cycle of arrests – not just one or two times, but a whopping 14 times for the same charge: being under the influence of a narcotic.

The facts prove that life in prison without the possibility of parole (LWOP) is swift, severe, and certain punishment. The reality is that people sentenced to LWOP have been condemned to die in prison and that’s what happens: They die in prison of natural causes, just like the majority of people sentenced to death. The differences: Sentencing people to death by execution is three times more expensive than sentencing them to die in prison. And if we make a mistake by sentencing an innocent person to death, it can’t be fixed.

In 1942, San Leandro draftsman Fred Korematsu was jailed for refusing to obey President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 ordering all citizens of Japanese descent to report to relocation centers. Korematsu and his fiancée had intended to leave California to marry.