lawsuit

Lawsuit Aims To Shed Light On Justice Department’s Surveillance Of Journalists

The Justice Department has twenty-seven ongoing leak investigations, according to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. That is a staggering number, and now, the Knight First Amendment Institute and Freedom of The Press Foundation are suing for records on how those investigations may infringe upon the First Amendment rights of journalists.

Chicago Police Accused Of Ruining Black Man’s Wedding Day

An Illinois man claims three intoxicated, on-duty Chicago cops made racist comments and attacked him and his fiancée in a City Hall elevator, landing the man in jail on what was supposed to be his wedding day.
“On what should have been one of the happiest days of his life, plaintiff Joseph Baskins was instead subjected to a nightmare that would last three years,” according to a complaint filed Thursday in Chicago federal court by attorney Josh Loevy of Loevy & Loevy.

Texas Student Sues After Being Expelled For Sitting During Pledge Of Allegiance

A black Texas high school student and her mom claim in a federal lawsuit that the principal expelled her last week for sitting through the Pledge of Allegiance, after which the school secretary told her, “This is not the NFL.”
Kizzy Landry sued Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District and Windfern High School Principal Martha Strother on behalf of her daughter India Landry, a senior at the school, on Saturday in Houston federal court. They are represented by prominent Houston civil rights attorney Randall Kallinen.

Judge Greenlights Lawsuit Against FBI Over Surveillance Of Barrett Brown Supporters

A federal judge Tuesday refused to dismiss a lawsuit claiming the FBI used an unconstitutional subpoena to spy on anonymous supporters of jailed journalist Barrett Brown.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James found the lawsuit plausibly alleged that the government abused its subpoena power to unmask the identities of unnamed donors who raised money for Brown’s legal defense.
“Defendants have failed to articulate any facially reasonable explanation for requesting donors’ identities,” James wrote in her 26-page ruling.

Judge Rules Black Lives Matter Can’t Be Sued

Black Lives Matter is a social movement, like the tea party or the civil rights movement, and therefore can’t be sued, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
A police officer anonymously sued Black Lives Matter and DeRay Mckesson, a prominent activist in the movement, after being injured by a rock thrown during a protest over a deadly police shooting in Baton Rouge last year.
But U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson dismissed the officer’s suit and ruled that Black Lives Matter is not an entity capable of being sued.

Beaten Charlottesville Protester Sues Over Deliberate Police Inaction

A man who says he was pepper-sprayed, doused with urine and beaten with canes during the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, has sued the city and state police chiefs, claiming their officers purposefully stood down during the violence.
Robert Sanchez Turner, 33, brought the federal complaint on Aug. 31 against Charlottesville, its Police Chief Al Thomas Jr., and State Police Superintendent Col. W. Steven Flaherty.