The Initiative: Establishing a Nationwide Litigation Blueprint by Focusing Intensive Efforts in a Single State—Specifically, Louisiana
Louisiana has the largest ratio of police officers to residents of any state and has the highest incarceration rate in the country. Moreover, state law allows police to expunge any alleged violation of criminal battery and assault involving domestic violence from their personnel files if the formal complaint at issue was made anonymously or was not substantiated within twelve months. In other words, in Louisiana, police misconduct goes largely unchecked. The State is a microcosm of the structural flaws that plague this nation’s criminal “injustice” system.
As one of a host of solutions that seek to end endemic and systemic racial injustices that permeate unconstitutional policing practices in this country, the ACLU of Louisiana will: Encourage participation of—and lead– for-profit law firms, located inside and outside of Louisiana, and law school legal clinics in marshaling their resources to bring legal actions intended to stop racially discriminatory policing practices. By focusing critical law firm and law school resources on a single state, the ACLU of Louisiana—alongside community-based organizations, activists, and groups—can help establish a litigation blueprint geared toward altering police conduct that every other state in the nation can follow. We aim to take hundreds of cases over the next several years.
For more information on this initiative, visit: https://www.laaclu.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/justicelabfactsheet.pdf
To view participating firms and clinics: https://www.laaclu.org/en/campaigns/justice-lab-putting-racist-policing-trial
