Jefferson City Correctional Center only allows marriages to be solemnized twice a year, but none of the nine women who had permission to marry on Sept. 24 were able to do so because they could not obtain the required marriage licenses. After pointing out this unconstitutional dilemma and suggesting solutions that were not accepted, the ACLU of Eastern Missouri filed a class-action lawsuit today against the Jefferson City Correctional Center, among others, on behalf of Fuller, four other named plaintiffs and others similarly situated.
“Nine couples were denied their right to marry because of an unconstitutional policy,” says Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU-EM. “Requiring visitors to provide their Social Security numbers is a violation of the federal Privacy Act.”