News & Commentary

For Immediate ReleaseApril 26, 2011Contact: Rosemary Harris Lytle, Communications Director303.777.5482, ext. 111 (office) 719.233.0243 (cell) [email protected]

ACLU supporters across Colorado are calling on Governor John Hickenlooper to take a public stand against locking mentally ill prisoners in solitary confinement. Want to join with them?

After two weeks of contention and media attention, the student paper at Overland High School is scheduled to hit the presses again soon, thanks to legal advocacy and communications support provided by the ACLU of Colorado and to two student journalists who were willing to stand up for their own First Amendment rights.

We have revised the ACLU of Colorado Privacy Statement because we want to clarify and provide more information about our collection, use and protection of information collected on this website, particularly as technology has evolved. In addition to clarifying our collection practices, the revisions include a description of our use of Short-Term Cookies.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court March 28, attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado alleged that the Denver Police Department engaged in racial profiling and biased policing when it targeted Denver resident Jose Sanchez, detained him without reasonable suspicion, and falsely accused him of being an “illegal immigrant.” Officers for the DPD then illegally arrested Sanchez for supposedly providing “false identification,” and illegally entered and searched the home of his girlfriend, Joshinna Carreras, without a warrant.

Student journalists from Overland High School’s decades-old student newspaper, The Scout, spoke out Thursday at the ACLU of Colorado, voicing complaints that the school principal has prematurely ended production of the paper for this year and fired their adviser in a student-administrator debate over “prior review” of newspaper content.

Facing a class-action suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado and the ACLU National Prison Project, the Boulder County Jail has agreed to a settlement, ending a policy that restricted most inmates’ outgoing mail to post-cards only.

A federal district court judge today granted class action certification to the ACLU of Colorado’s First Amendment lawsuit against the Boulder County Jail, moving forward the ACLU’s efforts to end unconstitutional post-card only prisoner mail policies.

SB-176 was heard by the Colorado Senate Judiciary Committee. It was significantly amended.