Criminal Justice

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ground-breaking ruling that pervasive racial discrimination in the state’s criminal justice system results in minorities with felony convictions disproportionately being prevented from voting, violating the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965.  

The April 18, 2006 testimony of the ACLU legal program director before the Public Safety, Governmental Relations and Arts Committee of the Seattle City Council.

Jurors’ derogatory comments about the Japanese ethnicity of an attorney indicated racial bias that undermined a man’s right to a fair trial. The ACLU-WA is urging the Washington Court of Appeals to uphold a lower court ruling that ordered a new trial.

The Washington Supreme Court has ruled that the government must provide a race-neutral explanation whenever the last minority member is struck from a jury panel. The ACLU-WA had urged the court to adopt such a bright line rule.

The ACLU filed a suit in 2004, challenging the constitutionality of the indigent public defense system in Grant County. The suit argued that public defenders were underfunded, overworked and lacked independence, depriving indigent defendants of effective assistance of counsel.

Seattle attorney Jeffery Robinson has been selected to monitor Grant County’s compliance with terms of a settlement agreement to improve the County’s public defender system.

In an order signed by Chief Justice Barbara Durham on May 12th, the Washington Supreme Court has decided not to review a 1997 Court of Appeals ruling that found unconstitutional the Bellingham juvenile curfew ordinance enacted in 1992.

ACLU Brief Says Judge's Misconduct Highlights Problems in State's Judicial System: "Freedoms are threatened when judges ignore them."

Sunnyside High School students and their parents have negotiated an agreement with Sunnyside School District to clear illegally imposed suspensions from the students’ school records. The suspensions were imposed when the students left school last November to protest the passage of Initiative 200, a measure restricting affirmative action programs.