News & Commentary

ST. LOUIS, November 18, 2010--The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri (ACLU-EM) has filed a civil suit against the City of St. Louis and Correctional Medical Services (CMS), the medical provider for the city jails. Filed on behalf of an HIV-positive inmate at the Medium Security Institute in St. Louis, the lawsuit cites life-threatening deliberate indifference to a serious medical condition. The inmate was incarcerated in late winter of this year, and for the first sixteen days of his incarceration was denied the life saving medication for which he has a daily prescription. During that period he was given only Tylenol, despite repeated attempts by him, a friend, and his doctor to re-establish his prescribed medical regime.

October 12, 2010--The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri (ACLU-EM) filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Correctional Medical Services (CMS) and the City of St. Louis today. ?The wrongful death lawsuit was filed on behalf of Landa Poke, sister of Courtland Lucas. Lucas died in the custody of the St. Louis City Justice Center on May 25, 2009. Poke is represented by ACLU-EM cooperating attorney Rodney Holmes.

August 16, 2010 - The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri today won a judgment in favor of Plaintiff Shirley Phelps-Roper, protecting her First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Chief United States District Judge Fernando J. Gaitan, Jr., declared Missouri’s funeral protest statute unconstitutional. The court also struck down a back-up statute intended to go in effect when the original law was found unconstitutional.

Court of Appeals Voids Termination of Immigrant’s Parental Rights

June 30, 2010– In response to civil liberties threats caused by the recent passage of Arizona’s racial profiling law, the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri issued a travel alert today informing Missouri residents of their rights when stopped by law enforcement when traveling in Arizona. The unconstitutional law, known as SB 1070, requires law enforcement agents to demand "papers" from people they stop who they suspect are not authorized to be in the U.S. If individuals are unable to prove to officers that they are permitted to be in the U.S., they may be subject to warrantless arrests without any probable cause that they have committed a crime.

Contact: Debbie Read

ST. LOUIS, April 15, 2010 The United States District Court, Eastern Missouri, has ruled in favor of plaintiff Frank Ancona, Imperial Wizard of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, who was seeking a temporary restraining order against the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. Ancona was represented by the ACLU of Eastern Missouri.

JEFFERSON CITY, MO – Faced with an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit, a political operative who has failed twice before to place an anti-affirmative action initiative on the Missouri ballot has abandoned his latest attempt to rewrite the state constitution to ban equal opportunity programs.

ST. LOUIS, February 4, 2010 -- In a consent judgment entered today by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, the City of St. Louis and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department are ordered to stop enforcing a St. Louis City ordinance that criminalized the placement of political leaflets on vehicles parked on public streets.