News Releases

The U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington today issued an order requiring Yakima to implement a plan for seven single-member districts for City Council elections. The action followed a 2014 ruling that the city’s election at-large election system unlawfully diluted the votes of Yakima’s Latino residents. The decision came in a lawsuit by the ACLU of Washington challenging Yakima’s system for violating the federal Voting Rights Act.    

The ACLU-WA is deeply concerned about this very disturbing incident.  Fleeing from police and not following an officer’s command should not be sufficient for a person to get shot.  Lethal force should be used only as an absolute last resort. 

As medical marijuana heads back to Olympia, legislators are bracing for a rerun of last session’s drama of makeshift dispensary operators and self-appointed patient advocates decrying any effort to rein in abuses of the law.

A federal court has ruled that the persistent delays in providing court-ordered competency evaluation and restoration services to pre-trial detainees in jails violates due process rights. The ruling is an important confirmation that the Constitution protects everyone, including people with mental illness.  

Oral argument was held on an ACLU-WA lawsuit filed by a gay couple who were denied service by a florist because of their sexual orientation. Religious beliefs do not give any of us a right to ignore the law or to harm others because of who they are. When gay people go to a business, they should be treated like anyone else. 

Alison Holcomb, ACLU-WA criminal justice director, has been tapped to serve as the national director of the ACLU Campaign to End Mass Incarceration. Bolstered by a $50 million grant from the Open Society Foundations, the campaign seeks to reform state-level criminal justice policies that have increased incarceration rates dramatically during a period of declining crime and have exacerbated racial disparities.

The ACLU-WA recognized civil liberties heroes at its annual Bill of Rights Dinner. Awards went to Floyd U. Jones and Alene Moris for lifetime achievements; to two legal teams from Perkins Coie that worked tirelessly on ground-breaking cases; to rapper Macklemore for his advocacy of LGBT equality; and student activist Sienna Colburn, who sparked protest over the firing of a gay educator. 

The ACLU of Washington today released a letter sent to Burien officials urging the repeal of a recently adopted law targeting the homeless. In the attached letter, the ACLU explains the ordinance is unconstitutionally vague and overly broad, and invites arbitrary enforcement.

Floyd Jones, a stockbroker and active philanthropist in Seattle, has established a $10 million endowment to support work to transform the criminal justice system, the ACLU of Washington announced today.  The gift creating the Floyd and Delores Jones Transformational Fund for Justice is the largest the ACLU-WA has ever received.

People with mental health disabilities are experiencing lengthy delays in receiving court-ordered competency evaluation and restoration services in criminal cases. The ACLU of Washington, Disability Rights Washington, and allies are seeking an injunction to protect their due process rights.  They should not be warehoused in jail while their conditions deteriorate.