News & Commentary

CAPE GIRARDEAU — The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri’s client, Frank L. Snider, III, was awarded $7 ,000 in compensatory damages Dec. 14 for a Fourth Amendment violation when he was arrested Oct. 23, 2009, for burning a flag in front of his Cape Girardeau home to protest government acts. Snider was jailed for seven hours on a charge of desecrating a flag.

St. Louis, MO — Gena Fuller had planned to remarry the father of her two children on Sept. 24, but there was one hitch. The Cole County Recorder of Deeds was not allowed to enter the Jefferson City Correctional Center, as he had done for 17 years, where her fiancé is incarcerated. Therefore, he was unable to complete the required marriage license. A new policy requires the Recorder of Deeds to disclose his Social Security number to prison officials—something he refuses to do—before he can witness inmates’ signatures on marriage license applications.

ST. LOUIS, MO — On Nov. 18, the ACLU of Eastern Missouri filed a suit against the City of Poplar Bluff for an unconstitutional ordinance regarding the distribution of handbills without a permit and advance written consent of the operators of each vehicle. The ACLU is representing Brian Becker, who feared arrest after distributing handbills opposing a local $20 million bond initiative for sewer upgrades.

JEFFERSON CITY, MO —United States District Judge Nanette Laughrey granted a preliminary injunction Nov. 15 that requires all Missouri prisons to notify senders whenever written materials they send are censored, seized and withheld from prisoners. The judge also ordered that after getting such notice, senders must have an opportunity to appeal the censorship.

ST. LOUIS — Kelly Glossip, who is challenging the discriminatory survivor benefits policy of the Missouri Department of Transportation (MODOT) and Highway Employees’ Retirement System, filed his brief with the Missouri Supreme on Monday, Nov. 5, 2012. Glossip’s partner, Dennis Engelhard, was a Missouri state trooper killed in the line of duty while responding to an accident on Christmas Day 2009. In addition, elected officials; law school professors; and a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) law enforcement organization filed amici briefs on Glossip’s behalf.

ST. LOUIS, MO — The Supreme Court of the United States announced Sept. 25, 2012, that it will hear the State of Missouri v. McNeely. The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri represents Tyler McNeely.

CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO – Sept. 6, the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Cape Girardeau on behalf of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (TAK). TAK members had planned to place handbills on the windshields of parked cars on Sept. 28, until they discovered this is considered a crime by the City of Cape Girardeau.

On Sept. 4, United States District Eastern District of Missouri Judge John A. Ross approved a consent judgment in a lawsuit against the city of St. Ann regarding a restriction of Eileen Grant McGeoghegan’s right to free speech. The city of St. Ann is responsible for paying her the $1 in damages she requested and is enjoined from enforcing its ordinance restricting political signs. She was represented by Anthony Rothert and Grant Doty, attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri.

ST. LOUIS, MO — The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri’s civil suit against the city of St. Louis and Correctional Medical Services, the medical provider for the city jails that is now known as Corizon, was dismissed Aug. 30, 2012. Originally filed in 2010 on behalf of an HIV-positive inmate at the Medium Security Institute in St. Louis, the ACLU-EM’s lawsuit cited life-threatening deliberate indifference to a serious medical condition.