Court Cases

Victory! In October 2015, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that public schools must turn over records relating to special education placements.

MBTA police officers brutally beat and arrested Mary Holmes after she spoke out to prevent the officers from abusing a person in her community.

Victory! In a landmark ruling on local ordinances that are designed to banish sex offenders, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on August 28, 2015 struck down a sex offender residency ordinance in the city of Lynn.

In our client Ryan Morris’s case, the sentencing judge violated his jury trial right by imposing a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence based on facts found at sentencing, instead of facts submitted to a jury or admitted by Morris when he pled guilty.

The ACLU of Massachusetts filed an amicus brief in March 2015 urging the state Supreme Judicial Court to hold that, when law enforcement has probable cause to obtain a warrant to look for a particular type of file on a cell phone, it should not be permitted to search the entire phone.

This state lawsuit sought the release of documents about the North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council's SWAT team and other military-style tactics.

The ACLU has challenged "mandatory" immigration detention and the procedures determining whether noncitizens will be detained or released during immigration proceedings.