Court Cases

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 23, 2020, the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit against the Montgomery County commissioners accusing the county of violating the state Sunshine Act when the commissioners dismissed the county's top two public defenders, Dean Beer and Keisha Hudson. After observing thousands of bail hearings in Philadelphia during 2018 and 2019, the ACLU of Pennsylvania and allies determined that bail judges were not adequately taking into account the ability of a person to afford cash bail before assigning that person cash bail. The ACLU of Pennsylvania and allies filed a complaint with the state Supreme Court, asking the court to ensure that the rules are followed in Philadelphia and across the commonwealth. In Montgomery County, Chief Public Defender Dean Beer and Deputy Chief Keisha Hudson filed a brief in support of the Philadelphia lawsuit and called into question the misuse of cash bail in Montgomery County, noting that because “the Office of the Public Defender represents indigent individuals facing criminal charges at all stages of their proceedings,” the defenders have “a substantial interest in this matter.” Just weeks later, Mr. Beer and Ms. Hudson were abruptly fired. The ACLU of Pennsylvania's lawsuit alleges that the firing of Mr. Beer and Ms. Hudson is a violation of the Sunshine Act, which mandates that actions taken by public agencies, such as the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, be made in public — and the action must be preceded by an opportunity for public comment. The lawsuit asks the court to void the actions of the commissioners.

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.

On February 24, 2020, the ACLU of Pennsylvania and volunteer attorneys from the law firm Dechert LLP filed a federal habeas petition on behalf of Julio Ortega Campoverde of Allentown, who has been held in federal immigration detention in York County Prison since August 2018. In November 2019, an immigration judge issued a bond order of $10,000 for his release, without consideration of Mr. Ortega Campoverde's ability to pay. The petition argues that, by failing to consider his limited income, the immigration judge violated Mr. Ortega Campoverde's constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection under the law.

Following the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Ford that courts must consider a defendant’s ability to pay a fine at sentencing, it was unclear whether that ruling also applied to fines with mandatory minimums. In the this case, the statute set forth a floor for the fine of $50 per offense, but the court imposed a higher amount without considering her ability to pay. That should have rendered the fine illegal because, even if the court had to impose at least $50, it was also obligated to consider her ability to pay any amount in excess of $50. The Superior Court unfortunately dismissed the appeal because Ms. DiNardo’s lawyer filed the appeal one day late. The court therefore never reached the merits of the issue.

On February 12, 2020, the ACLU of Pennsylvania and volunteer attorneys filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the borough of Jim Thorpe, Carbon County, and two borough police officers over a traffic stop that occurred in February 2018.