吃瓜大本营

Florida has arrested and prosecuted many returning citizens鈥攑ersons with felony convictions who are no longer incarcerated鈥攆or registering and voting while ineligible. These prosecutions have occurred amid widespread confusion about voting rights restoration in Florida and have been initiated by an Office of Statewide Prosecutor (鈥淥SP鈥�) that has no authority to bring these criminal actions.

A Kentucky woman filed a lawsuit in Jefferson County Circuit Court challenging two of the Commonwealth鈥檚 abortion bans that collectively eliminate almost all access to abortion in the Commonwealth. The case details the severe harms that Jane Doe, who is approximately eight weeks pregnant, and a class of all pregnant Kentuckians seeking abortion are enduring because the government has denied her access to the care she needs.

In this case, the Minnesota Supreme Court is considering the scope of a crucial doctrine that protects criminal defendants from being convicted based on evidence obtained in violation of their constitutional rights. Under both the U.S. and Minnesota Constitutions, courts apply an 鈥渆xclusionary rule鈥� that allows criminal defendants to seek the exclusion of evidence obtained in violation of their rights. For nearly 40 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has chipped away at the exclusionary rule by adopting and expanding the 鈥済ood faith exception,鈥� a doctrine providing that in some situations courts need not exclude evidence obtained in violation of the Constitution. In this case, officers acquired evidence after arresting someone based on a warrant that was listed as valid due to a recordkeeping error, but which in fact should have been recalled. In July 2023, together with other ACLU attorneys and partners, the SSCI submitted an amicus brief to the Minnesota Supreme Court asking it to hold as a matter of state constitutional law that the exclusionary rule applies to this situation, and that the good-faith exception does not apply. In March 2024, the Court ruled in the ACLU's favor, stating that the district court did not err in finding that the defendant's arrest warrant had been quashed before her arrest and the good-faith exception did not apply.

Federal and state constitutional law requires prosecutors to inquire into and disclose misconduct by members of their prosecution teams. In Massachusetts, the Supreme Judicial Court has applied those principles, and others, in cases that have led to the mass exoneration of people convicted of drug crimes with the assistance of former state chemists who committed misconduct. In Graham, the ACLU and public defenders are asking the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to apply those same principles to a situation where the U.S. Department of Justice has alleged a pattern or practice of misconduct by members of a police department鈥攕pecifically, the Narcotics Bureau of the Springfield (MA) Police Department. The Springfield investigation was the DOJ鈥檚 sole pattern-or-practice investigation during the Trump Administration, but the DOJ has opened several such investigations during the Biden Administration. Graham appears to be the first state supreme court case in the country to consider whether DOJ pattern-or-practice findings can trigger duties under state law to investigate and disclose the misconduct alleged by the DOJ. In a major victory, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in January 2024 that the Hampden County District Attorney鈥檚 Office violated its duties to disclose and inquire about exculpatory evidence of widespread misconduct by Springfield police.