News & Commentary

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.

On March 6, 2013, the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri and affiliates in 22 other states simultaneously filed public records requests to determine the extent to which local police departments are using federally subsidized military technology and tactics that are traditionally used overseas.

In a consent judgment signed March 5, a federal district court-ordered the Salem Public Library to stop blocking patrons’ access to websites related to minority religions that the library’s web filters classified as “occult” or “criminal.” Blocking access to material based solely on viewpoint is a violation of the First Amendment.

JEFFERSON CITY – The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Eastern Missouri appeared before the Supreme Court of Missouri on Feb. 27, 2013, to argue on behalf of Kelly Glossip, whose partner, Dennis Engelhard, was a state trooper killed in the line of duty. Missouri offers survivor benefits to spouses of troopers killed in the line of duty, but not to committed same-sex partners.

ST. LOUIS –The Department of Justice reached a settlement with an eating disorders treatment center that turned a Missouri woman away in 2011 because she is HIV-positive. Under the settlement, the Castlewood Treatment Center, LLC must pay $115,000 to the complainant Sue Gibson and $25,000 to the United States in civil penalties, develop and implement an anti-discrimination policy and train its staff on the ADA. The department will monitor Castlewood’s compliance for four years. The settlement can be found on the ACLU-EM website.