Cases

For more than one hundred years, ACLU lawyers have been at the center of one history-making court case after another, participating in more Supreme Court cases than any other private organization.

This page highlights current and important ACLU of Massachusetts cases, and provides ways to sort and search for other casework.

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Jan 5, 2016

Commonwealth v. Forlizzi

The ACLU brief argues that state ethics rules required prosecutors to seek court approval before secretly obtaining four years' worth of bank records for the defendant's attorney.

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Dec 7, 2015

Commonwealth v. White

The Supreme Judicial Court unanimously affirmed that the government must have specific information that a cellphone contains evidence of a crime before it can search or seize the device.

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Dec 7, 2015

Commonwealth v. Epps and Commonwealth v. Millien

These defendants were convicted of assault and battery on the basis of diagnoses of Shaken Baby Syndrome--but since the mid-1980s, studies have been published that cast doubt on the theory that SBS can only...

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Nov 25, 2015

Commonwealth v. Magadini

Does the "necessity defense" apply to homeless people who trespass to survive bitter cold?

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Oct 17, 2015

Commonwealth v. Estabrook

Victory! In a case involving cell site location information (CSLI), the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held in September 2015 that the government must get a warrant for anything more than six hours of...

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Eurie Stamps smiles with his wife Norma.

Sep 29, 2015

Stamps v. Town of Framingham

A case involving a Framingham SWAT raid that killed an innocent African-American grandfather centers on safety of people seized by the police.

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