The ACLU Foundation of Southern California undertakes litigation when doing so is the most effective way to advance a civil liberties concern. We file lawsuits that will have an impact on people’s rights by setting a legal precedent or affecting the policies and actions of public officials. We both provide direct legal representation to people and file amicus (friend-of-the-court) briefs addressing civil liberties issues in cases initiated by others. All of the ACLU SoCal’s legal work is on a pro bono basis; we never charge for our legal services.
The landmark California Racial Justice Act, passed in 2020, prohibits the state from pursuing convictions or sentences based upon race, ethnicity, or national origin and allows people to challenge proceedings that may have been tainted by racial bias.
Latinx people make up nearly half of all residents in Riverside County and roughly two-fifths of the voting population. Despite considerable growth in the Latinx population in the last few decades, there has only been one Latinx supervisor on the county board in its 129-year history.
Renting an electric scooter should not give the government the right to trace your every move — where you start, where you end, and all stops, twists, and turns in between.
In the City of Lancaster, instead of solving houselessness with housing, officials criminalize people who are unhoused. The punishment for simply being unhoused includes citations that carry fines far beyond a person's means to pay.
The horrific conditions in the shelters, as well as punishment for merely objecting to them, are not just inhumane, they’re illegal.
Police officers’ legal authority to kill underwent a key change in California on January 1, 2020, when a new law stated that lethal force was justifiable only “when necessary in defense of human life.”