In The Courts

Update: In December 2016, the Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s 2012 ruling that federal marijuana prohibition does not void Arizona’s Medical Marijuana Act and that the County and State should therefore allow the White Mountain dispensary to continue operating and providing medicine to qualifying patients in Arizona with debilitating medical conditions.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit against the fifth largest health care system in the U.S., Dignity Health, because it denies transgender employees health insurance coverage for medically necessary transition-related health care.

The American Civil Liberties Union, along with a coalition of civil rights organizations, filed a class-action lawsuit challenging Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s unconstitutional executive order, which denies driver’s licenses to a specific class of immigrant youth despite their being authorized to live and work in the United States.

Despite a federal court order from 2008, the Maricopa County jails – overseen by Sheriff Joe Arpaio –continue to skirt their constitutional responsibility for detainees' mental health. On April 1, 2016, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Arizona – which have represented the detainees at the Maricopa County jails for close to 20 years – filed a motion to enforce the 2008 order. Many detainees with mental illnesses were still suffering unnecessarily from the scarcity and poor quality of the jails' care.