Court Cases

In a precedent setting opinion, the court stated that “the use of less-lethal munitions—as with any other type of pain-inflicting compliance technique—is unconstitutionally excessive force when applied to an unthreatening protester who has neither committed a serious offense nor attempted to flee."

The ACLU of Colorado filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block the enforcement of President Trump’s recent executive order targeting National Public Radio (NPR) and threatening local public radio stations.

We filed an amicus brief arguing that there is no Free Exercise Clause violation when a governmental body conditions a public benefit on a religion-neutral and generally applicable requirement.

Danielle SeeWalker was selected as Vail’s summer 2024 Artist in Residence. But after she expressed her views on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Vail cancelled her residency. We sued Vail on behalf of Ms. SeeWalker for the town's unconstitutional viewpoint-based discrimination and retaliation.

The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Colorado, the Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the National Coalition Against Censorship filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that the First Amendment requires subjective intent to threaten, in addition to objectively threatening words, as an essential element of any true threat.

This lawsuit challenges a Greeley ordinance that bans all pedestrian presence in all medians throughout the city.

In this case, the ACLU argues that public officials who operate their social media pages as opportunities for constituents to discuss issues of public importance are governed by the First Amendment. Accordingly, public officials cannot block posts from constituents because of the viewpoints they express.

In this First Amendment lawsuit, ACLU lawyers sued the Town of Fraser for prohibiting ACLU clients from posting communicative displays on their property that express their views on social and political issues.