Supreme Court Term 2023-2024
We’re breaking down the cases we've asked the court to consider this term.
Latest Case Updates
Ongoing
Updated August 29, 2024
Ongoing
Updated August 26, 2024
Ongoing
Updated August 12, 2024
Closed (Judgment)
Updated August 9, 2024
Featured
Minnesota Supreme Court
Aug 2024
Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Hunt
The ACLU and ACLU of Minnesota intervened as defendants to block an attempt by Minnesota Voters Alliance -- a private plaintiff group -- to challenge a law that restored voting rights to individuals convicted of a felony while they are "not incarcerated for the offense" and "including any period when they are on work release."
Status: Closed (Judgment)
View case
U.S. Supreme Court
Jul 2024
Callais v. Landry
Whether the congressional map Louisiana adopted to cure a Voting Rights Act violation in Robinson v. Ardoin is itself unlawful as a gerrymander.
Status: Ongoing
View case
Nebraska Supreme Court
Jul 2024
Spung v. Evnen
Less than four months before the November 2024 presidential election, the Nebraska Secretary of State issued a directive embracing a non-binding opinion issued by the state Attorney General that would essentially reinstate permanent felony disenfranchisement and re-disenfranchise tens of thousands of Nebraska citizens. This directive is violative of both the Nebraska Constitution and several state statutes, and urgent relief is needed to avoid mass disenfranchisement of an entire class of Nebraska citizens.
Status: Ongoing
View case
South Carolina Supreme Court
Jul 2024
League of Women Voters of South Carolina v. Alexander
This case involves a state constitutional challenge to South Carolina’s 2022 congressional redistricting plan, which legislators admit was drawn to entrench a 6-1 Republican majority in the state’s federal delegation. Plaintiff the League of Women Voters of South Carolina has asked the state’s Supreme Court to conclude that the congressional map is an unlawful partisan gerrymander that violates the state constitution.
Status: Ongoing
View case
Ohio
Jul 2024
League of Women Voters of Ohio v. LaRose
In Ohio, HB 458 makes it a felony for any person who is not an election official or mail carrier to return an absentee voter's ballot—including voters with disabilities—unless the person assisting falls within an unduly narrow list of relatives. We are challenging the law because it violates Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) by making it exceedingly difficult for voters with disabilities to cast their ballots.
Status: Ongoing
View case
Mississippi
Jul 2024
Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP v. State Board of Election Commissioners
Mississippi has a growing Black population, which is already the largest Black population percentage of any state in the country. Yet. Black Mississippians continue to be significantly under-represented in the state legislature, as Mississippi’s latest districting maps fail to reflect the reality of the state’s changing demographics. During the 2022 redistricting process, the Mississippi legislature refused to create any new districts where Black voters have a chance to elect their preferred representative. The current district lines therefore dilute the voting power of Black Mississippians and continue to deprive them of political representation that is responsive to their needs and concerns, including severe disparities in education and healthcare.
Status: Closed (Judgment)
View case
Ohio
May 2024
Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region et al., v. Ohio Department of Health, et al.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Ohio, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the law firm WilmerHale, and Fanon Rucker of the Cochran Law Firm, on behalf of Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region, Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio, Preterm-Cleveland, Women’s Med Group Professional Corporation, Dr. Sharon Liner, and Julia Quinn, MSN, BSN, amended a complaint in an existing lawsuit against a ban on telehealth medication abortion services to bring new claims under the Ohio Reproductive Freedom Amendment, including additional challenges to other laws in Ohio that restrict access to medication abortion in the state.
Status: Ongoing
View case
Texas
Apr 2024
Crystal Mason v. State of Texas
Crystal Mason thought she was performing her civic duty by filling out a provisional ballot in the 2016 election. She didn't know it would land her a five-year prison sentence, upending her family and the life she had built. At the time, Ms. Mason was on federal supervised release, a preliminary period of freedom for individuals who have served their full time of incarceration in federal prison. Ms. Mason didn’t know, and nobody told her, that the state considered her ineligible to vote while on supervised release. Because her name didn’t appear on voter rolls, she filed a provisional ballot, consistent with federal law. The state never counted her ballot but has still sought to send her to prison for an innocent mistake.
Status: Closed (Judgment)
View case
U.S. Supreme Court
Apr 2024
Idaho and Moyle, et al. v. United States
Idaho and Moyle, et al. v. United States was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court by Idaho politicians seeking to disregard a federal statute — the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) — and put doctors in jail for providing pregnant patients necessary emergency medical care. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on this case on April 24, 2024. The Court’s ultimate decision will impact access to this essential care across the country.
Status: Ongoing
View case
Stay informed about our latest work in the courts.
By completing this form, I agree to receive occasional emails per the terms of the ACLU's privacy statement.
All Cases
1,452 Court Cases
Nov 2016
Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and Hawaiian Islands v. State of Alaska
The American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, and the Center for Reproductive Rights, filed suit to challenge Alaska restrictions which effectively ban health centers from providing abortion after the first trimester of pregnancy.
Status: Ongoing
View case
Reproductive Freedom
Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and Hawaiian Islands v. State of Alaska
The American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, and the Center for Reproductive Rights, filed suit to challenge Alaska restrictions which effectively ban health centers from providing abortion after the first trimester of pregnancy.
Nov 2016
Status: Ongoing
View case
Nov 2016
ACLU v. Department of Justice, Bureau of Prisons
The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the federal Bureau of Prisons for refusing to fulfill a Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to its officials’ visit in 2002 to a CIA detention site in Afghanistan, their positive assessment of the conditions, and the training they provided to the site’s administrators. Code-named COBALT and also called “the Salt Pit,” the site held people suspected of terrorism, and they were tortured there, according to the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee’s torture report that was declassified in 2014.
Status: Ongoing
View case
Prisoners' Rights
National Security
ACLU v. Department of Justice, Bureau of Prisons
The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the federal Bureau of Prisons for refusing to fulfill a Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to its officials’ visit in 2002 to a CIA detention site in Afghanistan, their positive assessment of the conditions, and the training they provided to the site’s administrators. Code-named COBALT and also called “the Salt Pit,” the site held people suspected of terrorism, and they were tortured there, according to the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee’s torture report that was declassified in 2014.
Nov 2016
Status: Ongoing
View case
Kansas
Nov 2016
Brown v. Kobach
The ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging Kansas’ dual voter registration system, charging it violates the Kansas Constitution and state law.
The dual system prevents qualified Kansas voters from voting in state and local elections due solely to their method of registration. In mid-July, Secretary of State Kris Kobach received administrative approval of a temporary regulation aimed at formalizing this system, which a court has already declared violates state law.
Status: Ongoing
View case
Kansas
Voting Rights
Brown v. Kobach
The ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging Kansas’ dual voter registration system, charging it violates the Kansas Constitution and state law.
The dual system prevents qualified Kansas voters from voting in state and local elections due solely to their method of registration. In mid-July, Secretary of State Kris Kobach received administrative approval of a temporary regulation aimed at formalizing this system, which a court has already declared violates state law.
Nov 2016
Status: Ongoing
View case
Oct 2016
Slahi v. Obama - Habeas Challenge to Guantánamo Detention
Mohamedou Ould Slahi (sometimes spelled "Salahi") is a Mauritanian national who was illegally detained by the U.S. for more than 14 years. On October 17, 2016, Mr. Slahi was released and transferred back to Mauritania, where he was reunited with his family. Mr. Slahi was arrested in Mauritania in November 2001 on suspicion of ties to al-Qaeda. He was then illegally rendered by the U.S. government to Jordan, where he was detained, interrogated and abused for eight months. He was subsequently rendered to U.S. custody in Bagram, Afghanistan and finally to Guantánamo, where he was held from August 2002 until his release.
View case
National Security
Slahi v. Obama - Habeas Challenge to Guantánamo Detention
Mohamedou Ould Slahi (sometimes spelled "Salahi") is a Mauritanian national who was illegally detained by the U.S. for more than 14 years. On October 17, 2016, Mr. Slahi was released and transferred back to Mauritania, where he was reunited with his family. Mr. Slahi was arrested in Mauritania in November 2001 on suspicion of ties to al-Qaeda. He was then illegally rendered by the U.S. government to Jordan, where he was detained, interrogated and abused for eight months. He was subsequently rendered to U.S. custody in Bagram, Afghanistan and finally to Guantánamo, where he was held from August 2002 until his release.
Oct 2016
View case
Oct 2016
ACLU v. CIA - FOIA Case for Records Referenced in or Implicated by the Declassification of the Senate Torture Report (2015 Torture FOIA)
In November 2015, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit demanding the Departments of Defense, Justice, and State, and the CIA release 69 records or categories of records either referenced in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report on the CIA’s torture program or whose classification status was implicated by the report’s release. While the full 6,900-page SSCI report remains classified, the summary of the report’s findings, which was declassified and released in December 2014, describes horrific human rights abuses committed by the CIA through its post-9/11 program of rendition, detention, and torture.
View case
National Security
ACLU v. CIA - FOIA Case for Records Referenced in or Implicated by the Declassification of the Senate Torture Report (2015 Torture FOIA)
In November 2015, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit demanding the Departments of Defense, Justice, and State, and the CIA release 69 records or categories of records either referenced in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report on the CIA’s torture program or whose classification status was implicated by the report’s release. While the full 6,900-page SSCI report remains classified, the summary of the report’s findings, which was declassified and released in December 2014, describes horrific human rights abuses committed by the CIA through its post-9/11 program of rendition, detention, and torture.
Oct 2016
View case