Court Cases

In 2019, the ACLU of Virginia filed a federal class action lawsuit against the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) seeking to end the practice of long-term solitary confinement in VDOC.

The ACLU of Virginia, Protect Democracy, and WilmerHale on the behalf of individual plaintiffs Melvin Wingate, Tati Abu King, and Toni Heath Johnson, as well as Bridging the Gap In Virginia, filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit in federal court challenging the Virginia Constitution’s felony disenfranchisement provision. The case, filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, claims that Virginia is in violation of the 150-year-old federal law that established the terms of Virginia’s readmission to representation in the United States Congress after the Civil War.

The ACLU of Virginia and Ali and Lockwood LLP filed two related cases challenging the Virginia Department of Corrections’ (VDOC) refusal to implement the earned sentence credit program according to the law, resulting in the over-detention of potentially hundreds of people in VDOC’s custody. Welch and Weerapunyanont v. Dotson et al. and Whitmore v. Walters, both class action lawsuits, seek damages to compensate people who have served more time than they should have, and injunctive relief to ensure that VDOC implements the law properly going forward.

On January 23, 2024 the ACLU of Virginia, the Institute for Justice and ACLU National filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court of Virginia in support of Ms. Leach-Lewis.

The ACLU of Virginia and Relman Colfax PLLC filed a new case challenging Virginia Department of Correction's (VADOC) refusal to award expanded sentence credits to people with certain convictions, unlawfully extending their incarceration. This is one of several cases that the ACLU of Virginia is filing to ensure the earned sentence credit program is properly applied to those who are eligible.

The ACLU of Virginia filed a case challenging Virginia Department of Correction's (VADOC) refusal to award expanded sentence credits to people with certain convictions, unlawfully extending their incarceration.

The Virginia Department of Corrections denies equal services to people who are blind or visually impaired. So we sued.

The ACLU of Virginia filed Prease v. Clarke in the Virginia Supreme Court, challenging the continued incarceration of Steven Prease and demanding his immediate release from Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) custody.

The ACLU of Virginia filed Anderson v. Clarke in the Albemarle County Circuit Court, challenging the continued incarceration of Antoine Anderson and demanding his immediate release from Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) custody. The petition for a writ of habeas corpus asserts that VDOC officials wrongly interpreted the Governor’s Amendment 19 to the 2022 Budget Bill to apply retroactively, negating the sentence credits earned by Mr. Anderson prior to the budget going into effect.