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The following summaries are from some of our most important cases of 2002. These cases would not have been possible without the dedicated support of attorneys who volunteer to assist CCLU.
FIRST AMENDMENT
Brown v. Damiani (U.S. District Court): This case involves an order by a Superior Court judge to a pre-adoptive parent in a DCF custody case to not discuss anything related to the case with the media. We are representing an internet journalist who is seeking to report on non-personally identifiable information about the government’s actions. It is our position that the government has an interest in protecting the identity of children in termination and custody cases, but that this power cannot be used to prevent parties from complaining to the media about alleged government abuses.
Rutchick v. Franklin (U.S. District Court): In this case, we filed a complaint on behalf of a Franklin resident who raised a sign on his property to commemorate a local Korean War veteran who was killed in action. The town issued a cease and desist order. The complaint alleges that the zoning regulation upon which the town based its cease and desist order is unconstitutional because it prohibits signs on the basis of their content.
Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority v. Mitchell (Superior Court): The Connecticut Civil Liberties Union opposed a lawsuit brought by the Connecticut Resource Recovery Authority (CRRA), against a public health consultant, Dr. Mark Mitchell, who is also the head of the Hartford Environmental Justice Network. In their lawsuit, CRRA claimed that a contract they signed with Dr. Mitchell prohibits him from questioning the public health impacts of the Landfill, and that Dr. Mitchell should pay damages to CRRA for his statements and testimony at a public hearing. We claimed that CRRA’s broad interpretation of the contract violates the First Amendment and is designed to muzzle Dr. Mitchell. In a settlement, CRRA has now withdrawn its claims against Dr. Mitchell.
EDUCATION REFORM
Sheff v. O’Neill (Connecticut Supreme Court & Superior Court): We returned to court this year to enforce the landmark 1996 ruling of the Connecticut Supreme Court finding school segregation in Hartford area schools unconstitutional. The compliance hearings in "Sheff 3" were held between April 16 and May 3. Plaintiffs’ witnesses included Dr. Leonard Stevens, who presented a new plan for expansion of magnet schools and interdistrict choice programs in the Hartford Region, and Dr. Gary Natriello, who analyzed the impacts of the state's limited efforts to date. Defendants’ witnesses included the state education commissioner, Theodore Sergi, and Marc Ryan, Secretary of the Office of Policy & Management. Judge Aurigemma has requested post-trial briefs, but both sides have now agreed to a three month stay of proceedings to discuss a possible interim settlement.
HOUSING SEGREGATION AND EXCLUSIONARY ZONING
In Re Declaratory Ruling on Rental Assistance Program (Department of Social Services): We filed a formal administrative petition with the Connecticut Department of Social Services demanding an increase in rent levels allowed under the state "Rental Assistance Program" (RAP), which provides portable rental vouchers for over 2000 low income Connecticut families. The program rents were frozen in 1990, and as a result families were unable to obtain housing outside of high poverty, segregated areas. We reached a settlement in principle on most issues with the Department of Social Services, including an increase in the maximum RAP rents up to 120%, 130%, and 140% of the HUD Fair Market Rents (FMR) in selected suburbs in the Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, and lower Fairfield County regions, and a commitment to hire mobility counselors in each region to help RAP clients locate apartments outside of high poverty neighborhoods.
Source of income discrimination: As part of a statewide effort to combat “source of income discrimination” in suburban towns, we have taken on several cases against large rental agencies in the Hartford area. Our goal in these cases is to establish a strong monetary precedent in the state Human Rights Commission, and obtain injunctive relief requiring these rental complexes to open up to include low income city residents who can afford to pay the rent with their federal and state vouchers.
Quarry Knoll Associates v. Greenwich (Connecticut Supreme Court) (amicus): This victory in the Connecticut Supreme Court caps a two-year campaign by the CCLU and other housing advocates to reverse the damage done to the Affordable Housing Appeals Procedure by the Court’s 1999 decision in Christian Activities Council v. Glastonbury, in which the Court misread the statute to end the heavy shifting of the burden of proof to towns in suburban exclusionary zoning cases. Our work on this issue included many hours participating on the Blue Ribbon Housing Commission and its subcommittees in 1999-2000, meetings in 2000 with leadership of the Housing Committee in helping to craft legislation to implement the Blue Ribbon Commission’s recommendations, substantial lobbying support by the CCLU and finally, this amicus brief in the Quarry Knoll case, which helped persuade the Court that their prior interpretation of the Act had been rejected, and that the burden of proof favoring affordable housing developers should be restored.
In Re Declaratory Ruling on Connecticut Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program (Connecticut Housing Finance Agency): In this case we filed an administrative complaint challenging the lack of civil rights guidelines in the siting of projects under the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program in Connecticut. Our Request for Declaratory Ruling, on behalf of a community-based organization in the Asylum Hill neighborhood of Hartford, seeks restrictions on future placement of low-income rental units in racially concentrated and high poverty neighborhoods. The administrative action, which is a prerequisite to filing a state court case, is based on a 1991 Connecticut civil rights law that the CCLU helped to write.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM
Doe v. Lee (U.S. Supreme Court): This constitutional challenge to the Connecticut sex offender registration law is based primarily on the due process clause of the constitution. We are arguing, in part, that Connecticut’s over-inclusive mandatory registration system for sex offenders has no procedure to evaluate whether persons are likely to be dangerous, and no procedure to permit registrants to challenge their placement on the sex offender website, even where there is no evidence that they are dangerous, and where inclusion on the sex offender website may have devastating consequences to their reputation and livelihood. We won our due process claim in the U.S. District Court and the Court of Appeals. The State’s appeal is now pending in the Supreme Court.
Mantoris Jones v. City of Hartford (U.S. District Court): We have filed a federal complaint on behalf of a young African American man who was allegedly beaten and kicked by a Hartford police officer after a mistaken stop. The circumstances of this stop may be part of a pattern of unconstitutional conduct by the Hartford police during routine stops, and our client is interested in helping to expose and put a stop to some of these practices.
State v. McCahill (Connecticut Supreme Court) (amicus): We joined in an amicus brief with the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association arguing that separation of powers principles barred the legislature from interfering with the setting of bail after conviction and pending appeal. The case also raised the issue of the proper role of the Office of Victim Advocate, and whether crime victims should be allowed to intervene directly in criminal cases, or appeal a ruling they disagree with.
Parole Revocation Hearings: We have sent a letter to the Chairman of the Connecticut Board of Parole expressing our concern about the apparent absence of appointed counsel for indigent parolees in administrative proceedings that could lead to reincarceration.
GAY RIGHTS
Holgerson v. Evangelical Baptist Camp (CHRO): The Commission on Human Rights & Opportunities has issued a "no cause" finding with respect to our claim of discrimination in the refusal to rent an off-season summer camp facility to the UConn Women's Center, based on alleged sexual orientation discrimination. The CHRO found the Camp's assertion credible that there were non-discriminatory reasons for the exclusion, even though there was unrebutted testimony that the camp director had explicitly referred to homosexuality in his reasons for excluding the Center from the Camp.
In Re State Employee Campaign (CHRO): CCLU was one of several petitioning organizations that sought successfully to prevent state assistance to the boy scouts, through the annual employee fund drive, in violation of the state’s non-discrimination policy.
WOMEN'S RIGHTS AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS
Corcoran v. German Social Society (Superior Court): We have filed a complaint on behalf of a Mystic woman denied membership in a local social/dining club because of her gender. Other than its exclusion of women from membership, the club is open to the general public. The ACLU Women’s Rights Project is assisting as co-counsel.
West v. Manson (U.S. District Court): The CCLU is responsible for monitoring compliance with a 1988 consent order governing conditions at the women’s prison at Niantic. Most recently, we have been actively litigating the issue of inadequate mental health care at the facility. Our work has led to the hiring of new mental health staff, and a new management team for the facility’s mental health unit.
Assisted reproduction technologies: The CCLU prepared a detailed critique of a Connecticut Law Revision Commission proposed statute on assisted reproduction technologies, including new provisions governing gestational carriers, artificial insemination, IVF, and other reproductive procedures.
Hospital mergers: As an active member of the hospital mergers subcommittee of the Coalition for Choice, we recently assisted the coalition’s attorney in the administrative challenge to the acquisition of the Sharon Hospital by an out-of-state medical corporation. The purpose of the challenge was to ensure adequate reproductive services, including abortion services, at the new hospital.
Contraceptives In Public Schools: The CCLU wrote a letter in support of the Hartford School System’s controversial decision to include the provision of condoms as part of its effort to reduce the rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease among the student population.
Breastfeeding in public school: We sent a letter on behalf of a woman who was visiting her older child for lunch at a local elementary school and was prohibited from nursing her two year old child (parents and younger siblings are invited to come to lunch and special events at the school) anywhere where other schoolchildren might see her.
STUDENTS' RIGHTS
Teshana Byars, et al. v. City of Waterbury (Superior Court): This case challenged the Waterbury school uniform and dress code policy. The plaintiffs were four middle school students who each have been suspended or expelled for wearing clothing that does not comply with the uniform or dress code policy. Trial was held before Judge Beverly Hodgson in the Waterbury Superior Court last spring. Plaintiffs' witnesses included Dr. David Brunsma, a national expert on school uniform policies, who reviewed the local Waterbury data and found no link between the uniform policy and improvements in achievement or discipline. Unfortunately the court disagreed, finding a reasonable basis for the schools’ policy.
Middle school suspension: We sent a letter demanding reinstatement of a sixth grader who had been suspended for writing a violent fantasy in his creative writing book.
Ramos v. Town of Vernon (Second Circuit): In this case, we are challenging the constitutionality of a juvenile curfew ordinance that bars teenagers from being outside after 11 p.m. on school nights. We are arguing that the curfew infringes on the fundamental rights of minors and usurps the family’s role in raising children. The trial focused on the lack of any evidence that the curfew reduced crime or protected juveniles from victimization. The crux of the appeal is what standard of review the judges will select to review an ordinance which would be obviously unconstitutional as applied to adults.
Student absence policy: In response to our letter on behalf of the CCLU Northeast Chapter questioning a harsh new policy at Mansfield High School penalizing students for excused absences (a policy which caused several seniors this year not to graduate), the school district agreed to make two immediate modifications to the policy to ameliorate its harsh impacts, and they also agreed to appoint a parent-administration committee to study and make further recommendations for changes during the upcoming school year.
PRISONERS' RIGHTS
Joslyn v. Armstrong (U.S. District Court): We joined with the National Prison Project of the ACLU in this class-action lawsuit challenging the use of 4 and 5-point restraints and stun guns against Connecticut prisoners housed in a Virginia supermax facility. The case was resolved last year in a settlement that moved the prisoners to a regular prison.
Troisi v. Armstrong (U.S. District Court): This lawsuit against the Department of Corrections challenged the termination of visitation rights of an inmate’s wife and infant son. The lawsuit alleges violations of the constitutional rights of due process and familial relationship. After several visits with her inmate husband, Theresa Troisi received notification from D.O.C. that her visitation rights had been revoked based on the prior violation of a protective order Ms. Troisi had obtained against her husband before he went to jail. Our client’s husband was released from prison before we could obtain a ruling on the prison policy.
Prisoners’ Voting Rights: We sent a letter to the warden of Hartford Correctional Center protesting the denial of a pretrial inmate’s right to vote by absentee ballot and requesting a revision in procedures to more easily permit such prisoners to vote.
IMMIGRANTS' RIGHTS
Proposed restrictions on access to drivers licenses for immigrants: We sent a letter to the Connecticut Attorney General questioning the constitutionality of proposed regulations submitted by the CT Department of Motor Vehicle that would discriminate against non-citizens by imposing substantial barriers to obtaining drivers licenses for legal immigrants. Attorney General Blumenthal agreed with our analysis and disapproved the regulations.
PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES
Hargrove v. North Haven (U.S. District Court): This case challenged zoning discrimination against a group house for recovering addicts. In a partial victory for the plaintiffs, Judge Thompson issued a temporary restraining order barring any further zoning enforcement against the sober house where our clients reside, and directed the owner of the house to seek a zoning variance for the property.
In Re First Step: We are representing First Step, a New London based housing and service provider for persons with mental disabilities, in two separate zoning proceedings. In the first, we have sought reasonable accommodation for First Step's move to a larger facility in New London by formal application under the city's special permit procedure. In the second First Step controversy, the city of New London has issued cease and desist order for the program’s continued rental and sublease of 12 units at a local apartment complex. City zoning officials claim that the use is not permitted because residents are not living independently, and because First Step is maintaining an unauthorized "office" activity in its support unit in the building.
PRIVACY
State v. Russo (Connecticut Supreme Court) (amicus): This important case raised the question of whether police need a warrant to search pharmacy records in Connecticut. The state argued successfully that local police may obtain pharmacy records with no warrant, and that Connecticut citizens have no reasonable expectation of privacy in their prescriptions. Joining the CCLU as amicus are the Connecticut Medical Society, the Connecticut Psychiatric Association, and the Connecticut Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.
HIV Name Reporting: We joined again in coalition with groups in the HIV care community to oppose a plan to institute name-based reporting for HIV in Connecticut. In our letter to the Commissioner of Public Health, we urged the state to adopt a unique identifier system.
RIGHTS OF EMPLOYEES
Department of Mental Retardation Registry: Along with legal services attorneys, we have concluded successful negotiations with DMR to reform their unconstitutional process for posting names of former group home employees charged with abuse and neglect. The proposed new regulations now comport with constitutional due process requirements by providing accused individuals with the right to know all of the allegations against them, permitting them the right to contest the evidence that formed the basis of the “substantiated abuse or neglect” charges, and allowing hearing officers to consider all relevant evidence that goes to the merits of the allegations. Prior to these amendments, an individual could be barred from employment in a DMR funded facility for life for alleged abuse or neglect, without a meaningful opportunity to contest the charges against him.
Your Employment Rights in Connecticut (2002 edition) substantially updates our prior editions of this regular CCLU publication. The 2002 edition covers 30 separate topic areas and is 80 pages long.
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