The PCJF and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights & Urban Affairs filed a federal lawsuit against the Laurel Maryland Police Department for publicly strip-searching Allan Sergeant during a baseless traffic stop which occurred solely on the basis of racial profiling. The lawsuit ended with a $125,000 settlement for the plaintiff.
In 2002, D.C. MPD and U.S. Park Police encircled Pershing Park and refused to allow anyone to leave before arresting and hog-tying peaceful demonstrators. The case received national and international focus after it was revealed by the PCJF that the MPD and its attorneys had engaged in widespread destruction and withholding of evidence. The case resulted in more than $10 million in financial compensation and substantial reforms of MPD and U.S. Park Police practices.
The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund served as the legal arm of a multi-year Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) effort that uncovered thousands of pages of previously unreleased materials revealing that the U.S. government was paying Miami-based journalists who saturated the Miami media with reports that were highly inflammatory and prejudicial to the Cuban Five at the same time as the government conducted its prosecution of the men.
For over a decade, the FDA refused to waive restrictions on access to the Morning-After Pill that were never supported by scientific evidence, politicizing access to reproductive health care. In June 2013, the Obama Administration agreed to make the drug available without restrictions and dropped its appeal with the Second Circuit.
In 2013, in response to the U.S. government's threats to send whistleblower Edward Snowden to prison for life, the PCJF organized a national campaign with civil liberties activists and organizations, called “Thank you, Edward Snowden."
The PCJF filed FOIA requests following evictions of Occupy encampments across the nation with the DOJ, DHS, FBI, CIA, the National Park Service (NPS), and municipal agencies. We obtained thousands of pages of documents showing the behind-the-scenes surveillance and coordination of the crackdown of Occupy, including the use of anti-terrorism authority against peaceful protestors.
For years, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) secretly operated under a set of general and special orders which it refused to make public or provide to civil rights organizations and lawyers. The PCJF filed suit to disgorge this large body of material that the MPD sought to conceal from the public. After hard-fought litigation in which the MPD’s attorneys at the OAG fought disclosure, the PCJF succeeded in forcing these orders to be revealed to the public with a landmark ruling which pulled back the MPD’s veil of secrecy.
The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund filed the class action lawsuit over the mass trap and arrest of 700 peaceful Occupy protestors on the Brooklyn Bridge. The lawsuit prevailed in the District Court and again at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which then took the unusual procedural step of vacating its opinion and reversing itself.
Class action impact litigation brought by the PCJF on behalf of more than 700 people, including demonstrators, journalists, tourists and passersby led to major and substantive reform in police policies and practices in the handling of mass demonstrations in Washington, D.C. The $13.7 million settlement was the then-largest protest settlement in the history of the U.S.
The PCJF filed the successful lawsuit challenging the military-style checkpoint program set up in Trinidad, a predominantly Black neighborhood in Washington, D.C., where police surrounded the targeted neighborhood, interrogated people without suspicion, and prohibited entry to those persons who lacked a police-defined "legitimate reason" for driving into the neighborhood. A unanimous three-judge panel of D.C. Circuit declared the checkpoint program unconstitutional.
The FBI flagrantly abused its counter-terrorism authority to conduct a widespread surveillance and monitoring operation of School of Americas Watch (SOAW), a nonviolent activist organization. Hundreds of pages of documents obtained by the PCJF, on behalf of SOAW, once again revealed the FBI’s functioning as a political surveillance and intelligence operation and its use of its domestic terrorism authority against peaceful protest in the U.S.
A legal battle waged by the PCJF resulted in a settlement in which New York City was required to establish a constitutionally valid permitting scheme for protests in Central Park. It was also required to undertake a feasibility study into the optimum and sustainable use of the Great Lawn and what efforts could be undertaken to maximize the availability of the lawn for large events including First Amendment protected rallies and demonstrations.