News & Commentary

Losing a loved one to homicide is a devastating and life-changing event. In Oakland alone, 148 residents were murdered in 2006, leaving behind hundreds of family members and loved ones whose lives were forever changed.

"We didn't do anything wrong," said Victor Lopez, one of the Latino students at Rodriquez High School (RHS) who in March 2007 were lined up in front of their peers, accused of being gang members, and photographed by Fairfield police. "I was just talking to my friends. The police shouldn't assume we're gang members just because we're Latino and wearing certain colors. Lots of kids were wearing the same thing we were on that day and nothing happened to them."

When the ACLU of Northern California learned in October of 2006 that the City of Fresno was violating the constitutional rights of its homeless residents by seizing and immediately destroying their possessions, we, along with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and the law firm of HellerEhrman LLP, filed a class-action lawsuit in federal district court.

In a new YouTube video released Feb. 28, 2008, Aundre Herron talks about why California’s death penalty has to go.  As both a former prosecutor and murder victim survivor, Herron has a unique and incisive perspective on the death penalty, which she shared with the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice.

We are deeply saddened by the apparent murder of 26-year-old Arthur Carmona on Feb. 17, 2008.

In 2007, the California Court of Appeal declared that the permanent injunction imposed on a so-called gang in West Sacramento is void. The injunction could not stand because the County District Attorney failed to give adequate notice to those who would be affected by it.

Jerry Miller, a former Army cook, spent nearly 25 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. In 1981, at the age of 22, Miller was tried and convicted for the brutal rape of woman in downtown Chicago. His conviction was based on what is now understood to be mistaken eyewitness identification.

Passengers in vehicles pulled over by the police have just as much right as drivers to challenge the legality of the traffic stop and its consequences, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled on June 18.

A California father and son, who are both American citizens, were finally allowed to re-enter the U.S. on Sunday after being barred from returning when they refused to cooperate with the FBI.