Court Cases

In the final days of 2020, the ACLU of Virginia filed an amicus brief in the case of Commonwealth of Virginia v. Harwinder Sangha in the Circuit Court of Fairfax County, which invited amici to address whether the Circuit Court should proceed with a misdemeanor trial even though the Commonwealth Attorney for Fairfax County, Steve Descano, had decided he would not—and could not ethically—dedicate valuable prosecutorial resources toward low-level misdemeanors such as the one in this case, given the sheer number of criminal cases his office handles.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Public Citizen, and ACLU of Virginia filed an amicus brief urging a state circuit court to keep anonymous the identity of “Devin Nunes’ cow,” a Twitter parody account.

The ACLU of Virginia and the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of Mr. Nicolas Reyes. Mr. Reyes is a prisoner in Red Onion State Prison and has been held in solitary confinement for 12 and a half years.