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.
The facility only allows marriages to be solemnized twice a year, but none of the nine women who had permission to marry on Sept. 24 were able to do so because they could not obtain the required marriage licenses. After pointing out this unconstitutional dilemma and suggesting solutions that were not accepted, the ACLU of Eastern Missouri filed a class-action lawsuit today against the Jefferson City Correctional Center, among others, on behalf of Fuller, four other named plaintiffs and others similarly situated.
“Nine couples were denied their right to marry because of an unconstitutional policy,” says Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU-EM. “Requiring visitors to provide their Social Security numbers is a violation of the federal Privacy Act.”
This case will be tried in the United States District Court, Western District of Missouri, Central Division. ACLU-EM Attorneys Rothert and Grant Doty are representing the plaintiffs.
The ACLU-EM is a non-partisan, not-for-profit membership organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of civil liberties in eastern Missouri. Located in St. Louis, the ACLU-EM is an affiliate of the national ACLU.
