The U.S. Attorney’s office “is desperate in the remaining cases to establish that people can be imprisoned not for criminal actions but rather for their association and proximity to others,” Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a constitutional lawyer and executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, told The Intercept. “The third category of defendants are being prosecuted based on presumed shared political views and association, specifically participation in a political march while wearing black.” Read more

A public records request and lawsuit by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund confirms that the Metropolitan Police Department failed to issue dispersal warnings or orders prior to mass arrests at the Trump Inauguration. The police actions on January 20 violated laws enacted by the D.C. Council in 2005, as well as the MPD’s own Standard Operating Procedures requiring such notice prior to arrest.

After months of denial and stonewalling by the General Service Administration (GSA), the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) has uncovered through painstaking and persistent litigation that certain government communications between the GSA and the Trump Organization negotiating terms of the arrangements for the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue have been kept outside agency records, on private email. Read more

"UF needs to provide the same constitutional rights to freedom of assembly, speech and association to those who want to oppose Richard Spencer’s racist beliefs as it has to Richard Spencer in providing him a venue where he is free to exercise those rights."

The civil rights legal groups expressed concerns that the University of Florida’s Police Department (UPD) has issued restrictions “that threaten the free speech rights of those who seek to express opposition to Mr. Spencer’s racist views.

The Office of the District of Columbia Auditor (ODCA) issued a report today criticizing the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department for failing to abide by the law and refusing to release to the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund documents regarding Chief Peter Newsham's controversial handling of the January 20th protests against the incoming Trump Administration.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court turned its back on the First Amendment and denied the constitutional rights case challenging the mass false arrest of 700 people at an Occupy Wall St. protest. In refusing to consider the arrestees' appeal, the Court let stand a Second Circuit ruling that poses a clear and present danger to democracy, free speech and a free press.

PCJF Sends Open Letter to DC Council: Last-Minute Revelations Require There Should Be No Confirmation of Newsham Prior to Independent Investigation Into Police Actions of January 20, 2017 | Action Alert: Call the DC Council!

The PCJF is proud to be part of the legal team litigating in federal court against the violent, militarized police suppression of Water Protectors at Standing Rock. The WPLC filed Dundon v. Kirchmeier, a federal civil rights class action lawsuit challenging law enforcement's excessive, indiscriminate and mass brutal force against Water Protectors.