Federal and state constitutional law requires prosecutors to inquire into and disclose misconduct by members of their prosecution teams. In Massachusetts, the Supreme Judicial Court has applied those principles, and others, in cases that have led to the mass exoneration of people convicted of drug crimes with the assistance of former state chemists who committed misconduct. In Graham, the ACLU and public defenders are asking the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to apply those same principles to a situation where the U.S. Department of Justice has alleged a pattern or practice of misconduct by members of a police department—specifically, the Narcotics Bureau of the Springfield (MA) Police Department. The Springfield investigation was the DOJ’s sole pattern-or-practice investigation during the Trump Administration, but the DOJ has opened several such investigations during the Biden Administration. Graham appears to be the first state supreme court case in the country to consider whether DOJ pattern-or-practice findings can trigger duties under state law to investigate and disclose the misconduct alleged by the DOJ. In a major victory, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in January 2024 that the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office violated its duties to disclose and inquire about exculpatory evidence of widespread misconduct by Springfield police.

In this amicus brief, the ACLU and its coalition partners urged robust application of the legal standard governing the admissibility of expert testimony and technical evidence, especially in cases involving opaque or proprietary algorithms.

This lawsuit contends that the consideration of race as an affirmative action measure in admissions at Harvard and at UNC constitutes racial discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

On November 18, 2022, the ACLU and ACLU of Massachusetts, with the law firms of Thompson & Thompson, P.C. and Elkins, Auer, Rudof & Schiff, filed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the question whether long-term police use of a surveillance camera targeted at a person’s home is a Fourth Amendment search.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the ACLU of Massachusetts have filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of 11 travelers whose smartphones and laptops were searched without warrants at the U.S. border.