Court Cases

In October 2021, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of six plaintiffs, challenging the unconstitutional incarceration of people facing probation and parole revocation proceedings in Montgomery County. The lawsuit alleged that the county continued to violate both the Pennsylvania Constitution and the United States Constitution by incarcerating nearly every person accused of violating the conditions of their supervision for months until their revocation hearing and asked that Montgomery County hold prompt revocation hearings to assess probable cause and whether detention is necessary and appropriate, and that the court provide whatever relief it deems necessary to the class of plaintiffs named in the challenge. In January 2026, the ACLU and ACLU-PA dismissed the lawsuit in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania against Montgomery County after the county implemented a number of reforms to its probation and parole system. Since the lawsuit was announced, Montgomery County has created a Detention Hearing Officer ("DHO") program that has addressed many of the violations that prompted the lawsuit. Although Montgomery County’s policies on criminal legal reform are by no means perfect, a review of county data since the implementation of the DHO program shows that Montgomery County has provided detention hearings within five business days for 95% of cases with a scheduled detention hearing — a significant improvement from where the county was before.

On June 13, 2024, the ACLU-PA filed a lawsuit against Governor Josh Shapiro and the leadership of the state General Assembly challenging the inadequate representation provided to indigent criminal defendants in Pennsylvania courts. As a result of decades of inadequate funding and oversight of its public defense system, indigent Pennsylvanians are at risk of being denied their constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel in their criminal cases. The lawsuit was brought by 17 indigent Pennsylvanians facing criminal prosecution without effective assistance of counsel at each stage of their criminal proceedings. They brought the lawsuit on behalf of a class of all indigent Pennsylvanians at similar risk of harm due to the Commonwealth’s systemic failure to fund and supervise indigent defense services. The lawsuit asks a Pennsylvania court to rule that the current state of public defense services in Pennsylvania violates the constitution, so that the governor and the General Assembly will protect our constitutional rights by adequately funding public defense in Pennsylvania.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania has filed a lawsuit against the Delaware County Office of Judicial Support’s due to the office's refusal to expunge a criminal record due to unpaid court costs, despite a court order requiring expungement.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania has filed an amended complaint against the Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board updating a previously filed lawsuit alleging multiple persistent violations of the Pennsylvania Sunshine Act. The lawsuit was originally filed by Rachel Radke, a community advocate who seeks a number of reforms at Allegheny County Jail. The latest filing adds another community advocate for criminal legal reform. The lawsuit alleges that the Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board failed to post public meeting agendas 24 hours in advance of the meeting; unreasonably restricted and ignored public comments; and used closed, executive session meetings to discuss topics that should have been part of public discourse.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania has filed a lawsuit in Berks County regarding two county policies that prohibit individuals from participating in treatment court programs as long as they use medical marijuana to treat their serious medical conditions.

In these cases, the Superior Court ruled that a defendant cannot have probation revoked and a new sentence of probation imposed for nonpayment of fines, costs, or restitution unless the trial court first considers the defendant’s ability to pay and determines that the nonpayment was willful. These decisions, while unpublished, correctly reflect that numerous prior published court decisions prohibit any form of punishment for nonpayment absent the finding of willfulness.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania have sent a letter of concern to the Luzerne County Council about the lack of funding and resources in the Office of Public Defender (OPD).

Magisterial district judges (MDJs) in Lancaster County regularly set cash bail without considering a person’s ability to pay, leading to the unconstitutional and unnecessary pretrial incarceration of hundreds of people every year. Although the Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure require MDJs to consider an extensive list of factors about an arrestee’s individual circumstances, including the person’s financial condition, when deciding conditions of release, the Lancaster MDJs named in this complaint regularly fail to consider any of these factors. The complaint asks, among other remedies: That Lancaster County provide counsel to indigent defendants at arraignment hearings That the Lancaster County Prison stop executing orders to detain individuals on cash bail unless the MDJs comply with the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment and engage in a constitutionally adequate inquiry into the arrestee’s ability to satisfy any cash bail conditions.

Because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Ford only addressed discretionary fines, additional litigation addressed whether so-called “mandatory” fines are actually mandatory at sentencing if a defendant cannot afford to pay them. The Superior Court ruled that they are. It rejected the statutory argument by refusing to apply the rules of statutory interpretation and instead relying on incorrect dicta from a prior Superior Court decision and a misreading of Ford. It further rejected the excessive fines clause argument under the Pennsylvania Constitution by disregarding the actual arguments advanced by the parties and instead performing a different type of excessive fines clause analysis that was not relevant. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court subsequently denied review. As a result, it remains unresolved in Pennsylvania whether a court is required to impose a fine on an indigent defendant when the court knows that the defendant cannot afford to pay.