News & Commentary

In the first case of its kind following the implementation of Proposition 209, civil rights advocates filed a federal class action lawsuit (Lucy's Sales et al. v. Contra Costa County) in U.S. District Court today. The suit charges that Contra Costa County systematically and intentionally excludes minority- and women-owned businesses from doing business with the County in violation of federal law.

A crucial piece of legislation C AB 1264 C aimed at documenting the apparently widespread practice of racially motivated vehicle stops by California police officers is currently scheduled to be heard by the state Senate Appropriations Committee on August 3.

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The ACLU of Southern California requests that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors call for an immediate and permanent ban on the use of stun belts by county judges or other court personnel as a means of punishing or otherwise restraining non-violent defendants.

Assembly Speaker Antonio R. Villaraigosa has appointed Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, to the state Commission on Judicial Performance. The eleven-member commission is an independent state agency that handles complaints about California judges involving judicial misconduct or wrongdoing. The commission has authority over active judges and also over former judges for their conduct before retirement from the bench. Commissioners receive no salary but are reimbursed for the expense of serving on the commission.

The ACLU of Southern California has sent letters to the Presiding Judges of both the Municipal and Superior Courts of Los Angeles County calling on the courts to ensure that judges or other court personnel will terminate use of stun belts to punish or subdue non-threatening defendants.

On June 30 Long Beach Municipal Court Judge Joan Comparet-Cassini ordered a bailiff to send 50,000 volts of electricity through a bound defendant because he was talking too much.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, in cooperation with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, is filing an amicus brief on behalf of a 17-year-old gay man who fled to the United States from Mexico after being subjected to repeated beatings and harassment by Mexican police and others.

The ACLU of Southern California sent a letter to the Kern County Board of Supervisors on June 25 urging that body to terminate County Human Relations Commissioner Douglas Hearn for making anti-gay remarks at commission meetings that the ACLU says make it impossible for the Human Relations Commission to fulfill its stated purpose to, "promote and safeguard the equal rights of and respect for all people within Kern County."