Litigation

In this case, the en banc Seventh held, over the dissent of three judges, that a mere parking infraction justifies a pretextual search. The dissenting judges warned that the decision gives police the power to seize people for “parking while black” and that “the police tactics here would never be tolerated in more affluent neighborhoods.” The MacArthur Justice Center is challenging the decision in the United States Supreme Court.

Jacques Rivera spent 21 years in prison for a crime he did not commit after Chicago Police, led by Reynaldo Guevara, framed him for murder. The MacArthur Justice Center and Loevy & Loevy represented Mr. Rivera in a civil rights suit against Guevara, the City of Chicago and other Chicago Police officers who worked with Guevara. On June 29, 2018, a jury awarded him $17 million.

At every stage in the litigation against that ban (which the President had often characterized as the “Muslim Ban”) the MacArthur Justice Center ensured that judges had before them a full record of President Trump’s hatred of people of the Muslim faith, his open desire to curtail their rights, and his specific, sustained promise to inhibit their entry to the United States.

In Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, the MacArthur Justice Center stood up for the rights of protesters in an amicus brief, showing that the mere existence of probably cause does not justify an arrest in retaliation for speech. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed, holding 8-1 that at least in some circumstances, probable cause does not excuse a retaliatory arrest.

The MacArthur Justice Center partnered with Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, Ltd. and Civil Rights Corps to file a federal class action targeting Cook County’s unconstitutional pay-for-release cash bail system, which results in the pre-trial detention of legally innocent men and women who cannot afford to pay the court-imposed bail amount in their cases. The case, recently dismissed on technical, procedural grounds, helped to catalyze important reforms in Cook County.

For more than two decades, the Colorado State Penitentiary (“CSP”) denied outdoor exercise to all prisoners subjected to solitary confinement, a practice that Justice Kennedy condemned in 1979 when he was a judge on the Ninth Circuit. As Justice Kennedy appeared to recognize long ago, the deprivation piles barbarity upon barbarity. In these cases, outdoor...

The MacArthur Justice Center represents the Chicagoans for an End to the Gang Database, a coalition of individuals and community organizations, in a federal class action lawsuit against the City of Chicago and Chicago Police Department (CPD) targeting the widespread use of an inaccurate, racially discriminatory Gang Database.

The Louisiana State Police (LSP) provides foot patrols in the French Quarter through an agreement with the City of New Orleans. But LSP does not consider itself bound by the terms of the consent decree in the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit against the New Orleans Police Department. The MacArthur Justice Center is litigating a...

Unlike Missouri and Georgia, Virginia provided some, but not all, documents in response to subpoena. But they would not allow depositions of their staff for use in the Mississippi trial in Jordan v. Hall. The Virginia DOC moved to quash the subpoena issued by our clients. After briefing but without oral argument, the District Court...

Corey Williams was wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder as an intellectually disabled 16-year old child, and spent 20 years in Louisiana prison for a crime that he did not commit. We represented Mr. Williams in a petition for certiorari before the U.S. Supreme Court and obtained his immediate release from prison through a settlement with the State of Louisiana.