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Criminal Justice

The Bill of Rights protects us against suspicionless searches and seizures. It guarantees due process to individuals who are accused of crimes and humane treatment to those who are incarcerated. The ACLU works to ensure that our criminal justice system indeed is just.
Stop the school to prison pipeline
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Washington Needs Bail Reform:  Download No Money, No Freedom
Driven to Fail: Exposing the costs & ineffectiveness of Washington's most commonly charged crime
The death penalty is arbitrary, unfair, and racially biased.  The ACLU of Washington argued before the Washington Supreme Court to end it.

Resources

News Release, Published: 
Thursday, February 18, 2010
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.  
News Release, Published: 
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
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.
News Release, Published: 
Thursday, January 7, 2010
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.
News Release, Published: 
Thursday, January 7, 2010
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.
News Release, Published: 
Monday, December 7, 2009
News Release, Published: 
Friday, December 4, 2009
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.
News Release, Published: 
Friday, November 20, 2009
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.
News Release, Published: 
Friday, November 20, 2009
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.
News Release, Published: 
Friday, November 20, 2009
ACLU Brief Says Judge's Misconduct Highlights Problems in State's Judicial System: "Freedoms are threatened when judges ignore them."
News Release, Published: 
Friday, November 20, 2009
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.

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