In The Courts

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, and Americans for Immigrant Justice filed a federal lawsuit challenging Florida’s new extreme anti-immigrant law, Senate Bill 4C (SB 4C), which authorizes state and local law enforcement to imprison people based on their manner of entering the country — powers the Constitution reserves exclusively to the federal government. The lawsuit is brought on behalf of the Farmworker Association of Florida (FWAF), the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC), and individual plaintiffs — including longtime Florida residents with pending federal immigration applications and with U.S. citizen family members who rely on their care.

On September 30, 2024, the Florida Department of Corrections rescinded its policy regarding treatment of gender dysphoria, which allowed for hormone therapy when deemed medically necessary, as well as access to clothing and grooming standards that accord with one’s gender identity. Under this new policy, grooming and clothing accommodations have been stripped away, and hormone therapy is not permitted unless an exception is deemed constitutionally required. The ACLU brought a class action challenging the policy.

This case gets at the very heart of our right to a jury trial. Traditionally and historically, the right to a jury trial has promised that a person could not be punished unless every single person in a group of one’s peers agreed, by jury vote, that that was the just outcome. However, Florida feels differently. When it comes to the death penalty, Florida is one of only two states that has decided that the “right to a trial by jury” does not guarantee that a person will be sentenced to death by a unanimous jury. Instead, in Florida, a person can be sentenced to die even if four people on their jury think they should live. The state requires just eight of twelve jury votes for a death sentence, which not only disproportionately affects people of color, but the very ideals at the heart of the rights of citizenship.

Whether a U.S. citizen gets a day in court to challenge the federal government’s revocation of her spouse’s immigrant visa.