News & Commentary

St. Louis, May 17 - Last night the city of St. Louis used a condemnation ordinance as a pretext to close Larry Rice’s new encampment, Integrity Village. The ordinance in question is designed for use in safety emergencies, which was clearly not the situation as tents were being newly erected on an empty lot. The city did not even cite any specific violations in its condemnation notification.

Thanks to efforts by the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri, April LaChance married her fiancé Alain Hersey-Brown today. The couple's original plans to wed this past Feb. 14 were postponed because Hersey-Brown, a Canadian citizen who was stopped in Boone County on a traffic violation in November, has been in the custody of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Morgan County Detention Center in Versailles, Missouri, since December. Morgan County Sheriff officials willingly offered to transport Hersey-Brown the 282 feet to the Morgan County Recorder's office to obtain a marriage license, but ICE would not allow them to do so. And the Morgan County Recorder refused to travel the 282 feet to the jail.

ST. LOUIS, April 18 – Yesterday, United States District Eastern District of Missouri Judge Rodney W. Sippel ruled that the city of Florissant unconstitutionally restricted M. Christine Breden Koetter’s right to free speech by requiring her to remove a political sign from her yard in November 2010. The city of Florissant is responsible for paying her damages, attorneys’ costs and fees. Ms. Breden Koetter was represented by Anthony Rothert and Grant Doty, attorneys with the American Civil Liberties of Eastern Missouri.

CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO. — The federal district court in Cape Girardeau declared on March 20, 2012, that Missouri’s statute prohibiting flag desecration is unconstitutional and permanently enjoined the state from enforcing the law. The decision came in a case brought by the ACLU of Eastern Missouri on behalf of Frank Snider, who was arrested and held in jail for eight hours on a charge of violating the statute.

ST. LOUIS — On Feb. 28, 2012, the ACLU of Eastern Missouri applauded the City of Ballwin for repealing its ordinance that made it a crime to extend a body part out of a car window. The ACLU represented Steven Pogue in municipal court after he was charged with violating the ordinance for gesturing with his middle finger to a driver who ran a red light. The officer pulled over Pogue rather than the red-light violator, and charged him with an ordinance violation.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – A federal district court ruled Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012, that the Camdenton R-III School District must stop censoring web content geared toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities through discriminatory filtering software. The ruling orders the district to stop blocking content based on the viewpoints expressed by the website.

ST. LOUIS — The ACLU of Eastern Missouri filed a lawsuit Jan. 25, 2012, against the City of St. Louis and its Division of Corrections over their failure to respond to a request for public records.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. January 9, 2012--The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri (ACLU-EM) has filed a lawsuit challenging the language of an initiative that would appear on the November 2012 ballot. The initiative would transfer control of the St. Louis Police Department from the state of Missouri to the City of St. Louis. However, the summary fails to inform voters that the initiative creates important exemptions to the Civilian Review provisions of the Missouri Racial Profiling Law and to parts of the Missouri Sunshine Law. These exemptions would apply only to St. Louis.

ST. LOUIS – On Jan. 3, 2012, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Eastern Missouri filed a lawsuit charging the Salem Public Library and its board of trustees with unconstitutionally blocking access to websites discussing minority religions by improperly classifying them as “occult” or “criminal.” Salem resident Anaka Hunter contacted the ACLU after she was unable to access websites pertaining to Native American religions or the Wiccan faith for her own research. After protesting to the library director, Glenda Woff