Court Cases

The Lancaster County commissioners failed to properly notify the public at least 24 hours in advance that they would be considering the elimination of their one ballot dropbox at their April meeting, as required by the state’s Sunshine Act.

On November 9, 2020, President Trump’s campaign filed a federal lawsuit against Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar and the boards of elections of six counties - Philadelphia, Allegheny, Delaware, Chester, Montgomery, Northampton, and Centre.

In the lawsuit Trump for President v. Boockvar, President Trump’s campaign sued the commonwealth and all 67 counties and is challenging several election administration practices, including the use of drop boxes for voters who vote by mail, which some counties used during Pennsylvania’s primary elect

For more information on this case, please visit our friends at the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project. On April 20, the ACLU of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, and the law firms Kairsy, Rudovsky, Messing, Feinberg, and Lin LLP and Dechert LLP filed a federal class action lawsuit against the city of Philadelphia and the Department of Prisons over the conditions of the city's four jails. Filed on behalf of ten people who are currently incarcerated and who are at heightened risk of becoming seriously ill from the disease COVID-19 if they contract the novel coronavirus, the lawsuit argues that the department has failed to implement guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to prevent the spread of the virus. In their complaint, the plaintiffs describe similar conditions across all four jails, including limited access to soap and cleaning supplies, no access to hand sanitizer, and housing arrangements that keep people within a few feet of each other. The people who filed the lawsuit state in their complaint that housing arrangements in all four jails keep them in close proximity to others. In some institutions, people are housed in cells with another person; in others, they are held dormitory-style in rooms with 30-50 other people sleeping in bunk beds that are two-to-three feet apart. The plaintiffs report all being kept on lockdown for the last month, requiring the people who are incarcerated to spend nearly 24 hours a day in their cells or in the dorm-style rooms, sharing toilets and sinks that are not cleaned after each use and unable to physically distance from each other. The plaintiffs also state that they either are not being released from their cells or rooms on a daily basis or only being released for 15 to 20 minutes once or twice a day. When they are released, they must choose between showering and using the telephone. When they use the telephones, they are within two feet of other people, and the phones are not cleaned after each use. The lawsuit is a class action on behalf of people currently detained and to be detained in the future in the city’s jails who are at heightened risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19 due to age, medical condition, or disability. The plaintiffs’ complaint states that the operations of the jails are in violation of their Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, their Fourteenth Amendment right to due process, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The plaintiffs are asking the federal district court to mandate the Department of Prisons to conform its operating practices with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If the department is unable to comply, the lawsuit asks the court to order the release of all people in the jails who are medically vulnerable. In June, the parties obtained a Consent Order. The Consent Order requires the Department of Prisons, among other things, to allow incarcerated people out-of-cell time and provide incarcerated people with free soap, cleaning supplies, and masks—basic necessities in order to protect themselves from infection. On May 14, 2021, the ACLU of Pennsylvania and co-counsel filed a motion of contempt after discovering that the Philadelphia Department of Prisons were operating under inhumane conditions that did not meet the court-ordered guidelines.

On April 7, 2020, the ACLU of Pennsylvania, Abolitionist Law Center, Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, and the law firm Dechert LLP filed a federal class action lawsuit on behalf of three people detained at the Allegheny County Jail, arguing that conditions at the jail increase the likelihood that they will contract COVID-19. The lawsuit was filed against Allegheny County and jail Warden Orlando Harper. Although the jail’s population dropped 20 percent in the weeks after the declaration of the national emergency, Harper has consolidated how people in the jail are housed, leaving at least an entire floor empty and actually increasing the number of people who are housed in a cell with another person. Jail administrators have yet to implement best practices recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to minimize the spread of COVID-19 in correctional facilities. By failing to do so, the county is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit seeks to represent all people who are or will be detained at the jail pretrial, with subclasses for those who are at heightened risk of contracting COVID-19 due to age, medical condition, or disability. The plaintiffs are seeking their release and the release of all medically vulnerable people. Further, the lawsuit asks the court to order Harper to implement the CDC recommendations to prevent spreading of the disease. On May 27, 2020, a federal court approved a consent order in which the county agreed to specific mitigation practices to decrease the spread of COVID-19 at the jail, including housing people newly admitted to the jail separately from the rest of the population for two weeks, housing medically vulnerable people in single cells, and requiring jail staff to wear masks during their shifts.

On April 3, 2020, the ACLU of Pennsylvania and the law firm Dechert LLP filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of 22 people who are held in immigration detention in two county jails in the commonwealth.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania on behalf of the Pennsylvania Prison Society filed an emergency request asking the state Supreme Court to use its “King’s Bench” power to protect public health by ordering county common pleas courts to release some people from county jails.

A federal civil rights lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement arguing that ICE has violated the constitutional rights of 13 people in immigration detention who are at heightened risk of contracting COVID-19 (coronavirus) due to age and/or serious health conditions.

On March 11, 2020, the Law Offices of Timothy P. O’Brien and the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a class action lawsuit against the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Allegheny County on behalf of Cherell Harrington, a resident of the county.