Court Cases

The ACLU of Colorado filed this class action lawsuit in federal court against the Colorado agency that administers the Medicaid program. It is filed on behalf of thousands of low-income Coloradans suffering from Hepatitis C who have been denied access to life-saving treatment due to Colorado Medicaid restrictions that force them to incur serious harm to their health before gaining access to the cure.

In this lawsuit against Colorado Springs police officers and the City of Colorado Springs, the ACLU of Colorado charged that two Black clients, Ryan and Benjamin Brown, were victims of the police department’s “custom and practice” of engaging in racially-biased policing and carrying out groundless, racially-motivated stops and searches.

ACLU attorneys filed this lawsuit against the City of Trinidad on behalf of two innocent women who were falsely arrested and prosecuted as part of a highly-publicized “drug sting” in December, 2013.

The ACLU of Colorado wrote to 34 Colorado municipalities that make it a crime to “loiter for the purpose of begging.” The letters demanded that municipal authorities stop enforcement and take immediate steps to repeal what the letter characterized as “legally indefensible” ordinances.

This lawsuit, in which ACLU lawyers participated as intervenors, is closely related to the ACLU’s challenge to the Choice Scholarship Pilot Program, the voucher program adopted by the Douglas County School District (DCSD) in 2011 that would channel public money to private religious schools.

The Wheat Ridge Municipal Court violated a Colorado law banning debtor’s prison practices by sentencing a homeless man to jail because he could not pay a fine, according to a filing made on his behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado.

ACLU client James Fisher was a victim of the unfair and unconstitutional debtors’ prison practices of municipal courts that ACLU of Colorado has criticized for years.