Court Cases

The ACLU of Colorado announced it would provide free criminal defense services to Shane Boor, a 35-year-old Colorado man with no criminal record who faces criminal prosecution and a jail sentence for displaying his middle finger to an officer of the Colorado State Patrol.

This suit, filed on behalf of Colorado resident Luis Quezada, asserts that Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink illegally imprisoned the ACLU’s client for 47 days in 2009 simply because federal immigration authorities suspected that Mr. Quezada was here in violation of federal immigration laws.

This class action, filed July 19, 2006, alleges that prisoners in the Garfield County Jail in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, are subjected to a pervasive pattern of disproportionate and excessive force carried out by deputies’ misuse and abuse of pepperball guns, restraint chairs, tasers, electroshock belts, and pepper spray. The jail has no written policies that limit deputies’ use of the first four of these devices, and the suit alleges that the one-page policy on pepper spray is insufficient as written and widely violated in practice.

Homeless persons in Boulder are at risk of being prosecuted under a city ordinance that prohibits “camping.”

This class-action lawsuit challenges a new policy of the El Paso County Jail (effective August 2, 2010) that bans prisoners from sending letters and instead restricts their outgoing correspondence (other than "legal mail") to 4" X 6" postcards supplied by the jail.

Thanks to a letter from the ACLU, a Greeley high school student will be permitted to start a Gay-Straight Alliance at his school, despite officials’ initial reluctance.

In a letter to school administrators sent yesterday, the ACLU demanded that Falcon High School rescind its prohibition against a student wearing a t-shirt that reads: “marriage is so gay.”