Court Cases

In a victory for voting rights, a federal district court sided with two civic engagement organizations that challenged the Kansas law, concluding that it violated the First Amendment. When the state appealed that decision to the Tenth Circuit, the ACLU—joined by our affiliate in Colorado and other affiliates from around the country —filed an amicus brief to emphasize the force of the First Amendment protections afforded to the political speech at issue in this case.

In a groundbreaking ruling issued in 2017, federal district judge Richard Matsch declared that the Colorado statute requiring lifetime sex offender registry imposed cruel and unusual punishment on three convicted sex offenders whose cases the court heard in a bench trial. The civil rights case was litigated in the trial court by attorney Colorado attorney Alison Ruttenberg.

On May 30, 2014, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission determined that Masterpiece Cakeshop unlawfully discriminated against David Mullins and Charlie Craig by refusing to sell them a wedding cake

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.

In this case, ACLU attorneys challenged an Englewood ordinance that makes it a crime for registered sex offenders to live within 2,000 feet of any school, park, or playground, or 1,000 feet of any licensed day care center, recreation center, or swimming pool. As a practical matter, the ordinance bans previously convicted sex offenders from living in the city.

This lawsuit is filed under Colorado’s open records laws and seeks disclosure of Castle Rock police department records related to the conduct of a police officer.

Four Colorado taxpayers and the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed suit in state court seeking a declaration that the Governor’s proclamation of a Day of Prayer violated the “no-preference” clause of Article II, Section 4 of the Colorado Constitution, which states that “[n]or shall any preference be given by law to any religious denomination or mode of worship.”

In early 2005, controversy erupted over the discovery of an essay that University of Colorado Ethnic Studies Professor Churchill had published in the fall of 2001, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The essay is titled “Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens.” Churchill argued that American foreign policies provoked the attacks, and he referred to workers in the World Trade Center as “little Eichmanns” who were complicit in the evils wrought by “America's global financial empire.”

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