In this case, the Minnesota Supreme Court is considering the scope of a crucial doctrine that protects criminal defendants from being convicted based on evidence obtained in violation of their constitutional rights. Under both the U.S. and Minnesota Constitutions, courts apply an “exclusionary rule” that allows criminal defendants to seek the exclusion of evidence obtained in violation of their rights. For nearly 40 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has chipped away at the exclusionary rule by adopting and expanding the “good faith exception,” a doctrine providing that in some situations courts need not exclude evidence obtained in violation of the Constitution. In this case, officers acquired evidence after arresting someone based on a warrant that was listed as valid due to a recordkeeping error, but which in fact should have been recalled. In July 2023, together with other ACLU attorneys and partners, the SSCI submitted an amicus brief to the Minnesota Supreme Court asking it to hold as a matter of state constitutional law that the exclusionary rule applies to this situation, and that the good-faith exception does not apply.

In this amicus brief, the ACLU and its coalition partners urged robust application of the legal standard governing the admissibility of expert testimony and technical evidence, especially in cases involving opaque or proprietary algorithms.

Nevadans, like voters in many states, have chosen to legalize marijuana for medicinal and recreational use. In Nevada, these changes—adopted through citizen ballot initiatives and, in the case of medical marijuana, enshrined in the Nevada Constitution—were intended to ensure that marijuana is regulated much like alcohol and that law enforcement resources are focused on violent crime, not the prosecution of non-violent drug offenses. Despite these legal changes, Nevada’s Board of Pharmacy continues to regulate marijuana as a Schedule I controlled substance for purposes of state law, akin to the Board’s treatment of cocaine and fentanyl. The Board’s scheduling designation for marijuana has enormous implications for criminal defendants in Nevada since state law makes it a felony to possess or engage in certain other activity with respect to a Schedule I controlled substance, as designated by the Board. This case, brought by an individual and organization harmed by the Board’s scheduling designation for marijuana, involves the question whether the designation violates the Nevada Constitution and state statutes. The ACLU of Nevada is counsel in the case, and the ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative is co-counsel on appeal.

Federal and state constitutional law requires prosecutors to inquire into and disclose misconduct by members of their prosecution teams. In Massachusetts, the Supreme Judicial Court has applied those principles, and others, in cases that have led to the mass exoneration of people convicted of drug crimes with the assistance of former state chemists who committed misconduct. In Graham, the ACLU and public defenders are asking the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to apply those same principles to a situation where the U.S. Department of Justice has alleged a pattern or practice of misconduct by members of a police department—specifically, the Narcotics Bureau of the Springfield (MA) Police Department. The Springfield investigation was the DOJ’s sole pattern-or-practice investigation during the Trump Administration, but the DOJ has opened several such investigations during the Biden Administration. Graham appears to be the first state supreme court case in the country to consider whether DOJ pattern-or-practice findings can trigger duties under state law to investigate and disclose the misconduct alleged by the DOJ.

In September 2023, the ACLU, the ACLU of Colorado, The Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, the law firm Mintz Levin, and other partners filed an amicus brief with the Colorado Supreme Court arguing that mandatory life-without-parole (LWOP) sentences for strict liability felony murder are “cruel and unusual” in violation of the Colorado and U.S. Constitutions. The brief focuses on how these mandatory LWOP sentences drive racial injustice.