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Current Legal Docket - 2008 Protection of First Amendment ACLU v. Chicago Under a modified consent decree, we continue to monitor the City of Chicago's surveillance/investigation of persons and groups based upon their protected First Amendment activities. In March 2006, a federal district court judge allowed RBF to proceed with discovery on a petition to enforce the decree on behalf of our clients - the American Friends Service Committee - whom the police infiltrated in 2002 when the organization was planning peaceful demonstrations marking a meeting of the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue in Chicago. In 2006, a federal judge ordered the City to produce all documents related to this infiltration and investigation of the AFSC. Through discovery, we have received what remains of the Chicago Police Department's investigative file. In July 2007, the City submitted the five-year, independent audit required by the consent decree. The entire audit report filed with the Court consisted of four pages. In October 2007, however, the City – relying on the brief audit – moved to dissolve the consent decree. We have opposed this motion until the issue of AFSC's surveillance is resolved and we are allowed to do discovery on the nature of the independent audit in view of the paucity of the report. Reproductive Rights & Women's Rights Zbaraz v. Hartigan The Reproductive Rights Project for the RBF/ACLU of Illinois sought and won a permanent injunction (issued in early 1996) barring enforcement of Illinois’ 1995 Parental Notification of Abortion Act. The ACLU’s challenge was based, in part, on the plain fact that constitutionally adequate procedures for judicial by-pass do not exist in Illinois. Indeed, in 1996 the Illinois Supreme Court refused to issue rules governing the appellate process for this by-pass procedure. In September 2006 the Illinois Supreme Court suddenly issued rules it claimed met the constitutional standard for the judicial by-pass process. In early 2007, the Illinois Attorney General asked the federal court to lift the 1996 injunction based on the Supreme Court’s action – though the Attorney General acknowledged that the circuit courts were not prepared to implement the by-pass at that time. The court denied the Attorney General’s request, but preserved the right of the State of Illinois to raise the request anew when the courts were ready. In March 2007 the Attorney General again sought the dissolution of the injunction, based on a statement from the Illinois Supreme Court that the Court now was willing to “presume, and therefore assert” that the circuit courts were ready to implement the by-pass. We have filed a brief in response including information about the lack of readiness in a number of jurisdictions across Illinois. The Attorney General filed a response to our motion in June 2007, asking that the Court dissolve its injunction and only then permits plaintiffs to raise claims regarding the constitutional deficiency of the statute. We are awaiting the decision of the court. Morr-Fitz, Inc., et al., v. Blagojevich, et al. The RBF/ACLU of Illinois filed an amicus brief in a lawsuit, brought by three Illinois pharmacy corporations and two individual pharmacists, challenging an Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation administrative rule setting forth the circumstances in which pharmacies are obligated to dispense prescription contraceptives. The plaintiffs alleged that the rule violated various state and federal constitutional and statutory provisions, including the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act. The trial court dismissed the case on the ground that plaintiffs’ challenges to the Rule were not ripe for judicial review, and the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the dismissal. The plaintiffs argued in their brief to the state Supreme Court that the rule was facially invalid and should be struck down because it conflicted with rights protected by the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act. In January 2008, we filed an amicus brief urging the court to reject plaintiffs’ challenge to the rule. We argued that plaintiffs’ expansive reading of the Health Care Right of Conscience Act as providing absolute protection for the conscience objections of healthcare workers, despite the impact such refusals would have on women seeking to access constitutionally-protected healthcare, was incorrect and inappropriate. We are awaiting plaintiffs’ reply brief. National Abortion Federation v. Ashcroft The Reproductive Rights Project for the RBF/ACLU of Illinois worked in collaboration with the National ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project and the New York Civil Liberties Union to challenge a federal ban on abortion that contains no health exception for pregnant women. In January 2006, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a district court ruling in our favor. In May 2007, the Supreme Court of the United States, in companion cases to our challenge, upheld the federal law even without the health exemption for women. We are working with our clients to provide advice to physicians about how to provide health care services consistent with the Court’s ruling. Miller v. American Infertility Group of Illinois In February 2005, a Cook County Circuit Court Judge ruled that a fertilized egg never implanted in a woman’s uterus is a “human being” for purposes of the Illinois Wrongful Death Act. In reaching this ruling the judge relied in part on definitions of “conception” and “fertilization” containing the Illinois Abortion Law, portions that have been enjoined a series of cases in which the RBF/ACLU represented plaintiffs. The judge failed to take these lawsuits and resulting injunctions into account in reaching his conclusion that the RBF/ACLU of Illinois filed an amicus brief in the state court of appeals challenging the ruling of a district court. We are awaiting oral argument in the case. Cummins v. The State of Illinois The RBF/ACLU represents a group of thirty (30) physicians as amicus curiae in a case before the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in a case challenging a previous State of Illinois policy excluding coverage of contraceptives as part of the State’s insurance plan. The federal district court, in a ruling counter to findings in many other courts and the EEOC, found ruled that contraceptive coverage could be lawfully excluded from the state insurance plan. Our brief on behalf of the physicians’ group sets forth the importance of contraception as an essential component of women’s health care and as critical to the ability of women to play an equal role in professional, academic and social aspects of society. The case remains pending. Post 9/11 Civil Liberties Issues Akif Rahman v. Chertoff The RBF/ACLU of Illinois, along with ACLU affiliates in Massachusetts, Michigan and Washington State, represents nine individuals - all United States citizens - who have been the victims of repeated stops, harassment and undue detentions upon re-entering the country. These plaintiffs have faced frightening situations - having guns drawn on them, being hand-cuffed for long per |