Litigation

S.B. 2343 makes peaceful protests on public sidewalks and streets next to state government buildings in Jackson, Mississippi, illegal without receiving prior written permission from one of two government officials – a clear violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting alongside communities to ensure the right to peacefully gather and protest is preserved as a democratic pillar and constitutional right.

H.B. 1020 is radical legislation that unconstitutionally packs the Hinds County Circuit Court and a sweeping effort to disempower voters in majority-Black Hinds County from choosing their own local judges. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting alongside communities whose state legislators are unconstitutionally robbing them of political self-determination, particularly within the criminal legal system.

When prosecutors at Antiwuan Tyrez Campbell’s trial removed a Black woman from the potential jury pool, they knew they weren’t allowed to do it on account of her race. Instead, they listed a slew of reasons, including the fact that “she was a participant, if not an organizer, for Black Lives Matter at her current...

In the midst of the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, voting by mail is the safest option for many voters, especially elderly and medically-vulnerable individuals. As healthcare workers continue to serve on the front lines of our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, members of 1199SEIU are especially reliant on their ability to cast ballots by mail. In...

    The Wisconsin Elections Commission’s failure to properly manage the April 7 election, held amid the expanding coronavirus pandemic, violated federal law and the U.S. Constitution, which protects every eligible voter’s right to vote.     A coalition of Wisconsin voters and organizations that work to mobilize Wisconsin voters sued state election officials for...

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.

We represent Adham Hassoun, a stateless Palestinian man who the government is trying to imprison indefinitely—potentially for the rest of his life—under the USA Patriot Act. This is the first time that the government has invoked a highly controversial provision of the PATRIOT Act that purports to allow the government to hold people in detention...

People who are arrested and held in jails have the constitutional right to vote in elections. They are innocent until proven guilty and cannot be disfranchised. But, in Ohio, if a person is jailed in the days leading up to Election Day after the deadline to request an absentee ballot there is literally no way...

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.

After a false inclusion in the CPD's Gang Database, six ICE agents stormed Mr. Catalan-Ramirez's house without a warrant, slammed him to the ground, handcuffed him, and took him away where he was detained, without adequate medical care, for over 10 months.The MacArthur Justice Center joined with the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild to sue the City and ICE on Mr. Catalan-Ramirez's behalf. We have secured his freedom – and gotten his name removed from the Gang Database.