News & Commentary

ST. LOUIS – Not long ago, anyone with $25 could get an annual license to perform in the City of St. Louis. That’s not the case today. Buskers must audition before an administrative assistant in the Street Department. Those who pass the talent test, then have to pay $100 per person for an annual license that can be yanked without notice. Representing two musicians, the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri filed a suit on May 8, 2013, challenging the City of St. Louis’ unconstitutional busking policies.

BOONVILLE, Mo. – Rev. Christopher Olah lost his Boonslick Regional Library privileges in March when a Boonville branch librarian decided he wasn’t a permanent resident because he lives in a transitional shelter. Olah then contacted the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri (ACLU-EM).

Reggie Clemons, sitting on Missouri’s death row, was sentenced as an accomplice in the death of two white women in 1991. Clemons and two other black men were sentenced to death while a fourth person, a young white man was offered a plea deal and is out on parole. That is not the only race issue in the case. The original suspect, a white man and the cousin of the women, confessed to the crime after failing a lie detector test and changing his story several times. All three black defendants claimed that their confessions were coerced by police beatings and/or denial of constitutional rights. The arraignment judge sent Clemons to the hospital for obvious injuries he did not have before his ‘interview’ with police.

ST. LOUIS – The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri is challenging the City of Ellisville’s policy and custom of retaliating against drivers who use their headlights to send a message to slow down and proceed with caution. The suit was filed April 16, 2013, in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Missouri, Eastern Division.

ST. LOUIS – Brent Stafford, a resident of O’Fallon, Mo., was arrested on St. Patrick’s Day last year, but not for shenanigans related to the holiday. The committee member of the St. Charles County Republican Central Committee was exercising his First Amendment political speech and associational rights on a St. Peters’ public sidewalk located outside the Francis Howell High School gymnasium, where the St. Charles County Republican Caucus was held. The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri filed a suit, on Stafford’s behalf, against the City of St. Peters and St. Peters Police Officer Tim Hickey on April 15, 2013.

Nearly all of Linn State Technical College students who were subjected to a suspicionless drug test in September 2011 will not have the results of those tests reported to the school. On March 22, United States District Judge Nanette K. Laughrey ruled that most of the 500 students who were tested, with the exception of students enrolled in the aviation maintenance, heavy equipment operations and industrial electricity programs, will likely succeed in their claim that the test violated their constitutional right to not be searched. Students enrolled in the remaining 30 programs cannot be drug tested.

Nearly six months have passed since nine marriage ceremonies at the Jefferson City Correctional Center were canceled because the couples couldn’t obtain marriage licenses. The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri filed a suit in November on behalf of five of the fiancées who were determined to find a solution. On March 21, Chief United States District Judge Fernando J. Gaitan, Jr., ruled that a Missouri statute that requires both parties to sign a marriage license in the presence of the recorder of deeds is unconstitutional when an applicant is incarcerated. The Cole County recorder of deeds will be able to issue a marriage license with reasonable written proof authenticating the signature and incarceration of an applicant.

Scouts, Little League baseball teams, firefighters and members of the Ku Klux Klan are free to pass out handbills in the City of Desloge. On March 19, United States District Judge Audrey G. Fleissig entered a consent judgment that the City of Desloge must not enforce the city ordinance that prohibits the distribution of leaflets on city streets and sidewalks.

A First Amendment lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri on behalf of Brian Becker against the city of Poplar Bluff was settled on March 14, 2013. The City of Poplar Bluff has agreed to drop all investigations against Becker for distributing leaflets and not replace the unconstitutional ordinance, which forbids the placement of handbills on vehicles without a permit and advance written consent of the vehicle owners; the ordinance was repealed shortly after the ACLU brought suit.