Court Cases

In August 2022, two Philadelphia residents sued the city and, later, the Abortion Liberation Fund of Pennsylvania (ALF-PA) challenging a donation of $500,000 that the city made to ALF-PA.

On October 6, 2022, the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Education on behalf of seven students in Central Bucks School District who allege a culture of discrimination against LGBQ&T students, particularly trans and nonbinary students.

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 April 29, 2022, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Harrisburg, alleging that the city violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments by forcing climate activists to navigate a burdensome and expensive permitting process in order to hold a festival and peaceful march. Better Path Coalition, a group of climate activists and organizations from across Pennsylvania, was planning three days of events in Harrisburg in June 2022, including a festival, a march, and a rally at the state capitol. During the permitting process, the group found that the city of Harrisburg imposed what they felt were unconstitutional restrictions on a public gathering. While the ACLU-PA was able to resolve the issues some of the issues, the city of Harrisburg continued to insist that Better Path Coalition cover the cost of traffic control during the events, obtain expensive insurance, agree to indemnify Harrisburg for any damage including that caused by people beyond the coalition’s control, and assorted other conditions beyond their capability. The lawsuit asks the court to order Harrisburg to block the city’s enforcement of its permitting system, including the remaining fees. On February 2, 2024, the case was updated in federal court as the coalition plans a similar event for 2024. On August 19, 2024, the court denied the city's motion to dismiss the case, concluding that Better Path Coalition's claims of unconstitutional restrictions on free speech by the city are plausible.

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.

The consolidated lawsuits McLinko v. Commonwealth and Bonner v. Commonwealth are state constitutional challenges to Act 77 of 2019. That law implemented numerous election law reforms, including no-excuse absentee voting, or what is sometimes called vote-by-mail.

On January 31, 2022, the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Lehigh County to require the county to count 257 mail-in ballots from the 2021 general election that were disqualified only because they were missing the handwritten date on the outer envelope in which the ballot is placed for mailing or submission. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of five county residents, all of whom are qualified to vote and whose ballots arrived to the elections bureau in time to be tabulated. All 257 voters impacted by the disqualification of their ballots for not including the date are otherwise eligible to vote and properly followed the procedures for voting by mail. In the complaint, the ACLU states that disqualifying the undated ballots runs afoul of both the federal Civil Rights Act and the Constitution. The Civil Rights Act prohibits disqualifying a person’s vote if the reason for disqualification is “not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under State law to vote(.)” The lawsuit also states that the county’s failure to notify the voters of the errors violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Finally, the plaintiffs state that the date requirement is “superfluous” and an undue burden that restricts their right to vote, in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. On March 16, the federal district court ruled against the voters. On May 20, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled in favor of the voters, ordering the 257 ballots to be counted, and accompanied their judgment with a precedential opinion released a week later. On May 31, the Supreme Court of the United States temporarily halted, or stayed, the circuit court's ruling while the justices considered the case. On June 9, 2022, the Supreme Court denied the stay in a 6-3 ruling, leaving the appeals court ruling in place and clearing the way for the ballots to be counted. On October 11, 2022, months after the Lehigh County election had been certified, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the lower courts' rulings, meaning that the appeals court ruling is no longer precedent in the federal Third Circuit.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania and Juntos have filed a Freedom Of Information Act request with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regarding the enforcement actions by the Philadelphia ICE field office. The Philadelphia ICE field office has continued to take an aggressive stance on enforcement and removal during the Biden Administration. They have flouted their own agency guidance and have continued detaining people who clearly fall outside agency guidelines. Given the cruel track record of the Philadelphia Field Office and the Biden Administration’s unconscionable decision to triple the number of detention beds available in the state, it is critical that we obtain records about ICE’s compliance with their priorities and to hold the Philadelphia ICE office accountable for problematic enforcement patterns and potential violations of the law.