ACLU of West Virginia Story Archives - Page 2 of 5 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Judge Prohibits Cell Phones In Three Eastern Panhandle Courthouses, Prompts Pushback

The order focuses on safety and security while exempting courthouse employees and courtroom personnel, and provides special exemptions for things like weddings and drug court graduations.

Last week, 23rd Judicial Court Chief Judge Stephen Redding issued an administrative order restricting the general public from bringing electronic devices that can record into the Berkeley, Jefferson and Morgan county courthouses.

The order focuses on safety and security while exempting courthouse employees and courtroom personnel, and provides special exemptions for things like weddings and drug court graduations.

Eli Baumwell, ACLU West Virginia advocacy director, said cell phones are an everyday tool, and this ruling will disproportionately hurt people by treating cell phones like weapons.

“It’s going to really cause problems,” Baumwell said. “Particularly for low-income people, people of color, people who are really disproportionately represented in these courts and oftentimes rely on their phones to do things like present evidence.”

The order notes that witnesses and jurors who have not necessarily consented to or volunteered to come to the courthouse have a right not to be photographed, recorded or their coming and goings disseminated outside the courthouse complex. The order states the use of such devices in the common areas of the courthouse may be authorized by the Chief Circuit Court Judge, or the presiding judges of Jefferson and Morgan counties.

Don Smith, executive director of the West Virginia Press Association, said without knowing more about the safety and security reasons behind the order, it seems an impractical and inconvenient overreach.

“For residents of the counties who have a lot of information on their phones or need to record information on their phones, be it in a clerk’s office or anywhere else in the courthouse,” Smith said. “It is something that will have to be challenged in terms of the legality of him being able to do this.”

The order said exemptions can also come from presiding judicial officers, and that violators can be fined or imprisoned or face a contempt of court charge.

Redding’s law clerk responded to West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s request for comment and said, “the rules of judicial conduct do not permit this office to comment on what may become a litigated matter.”

ACLU Drops Federal Lawsuit Against W.Va. Abortion Ban

West Virginia abortion providers and advocates dropped a federal lawsuit challenging multiple provisions of the state’s near-total abortion ban.

The Women’s Health Center of West Virginia said in a court filing Monday that one of the physicians involved in the suit “has now determined that he will not be able to resume providing abortion care in West Virginia at this time.” The other physician involved in the lawsuit is “no longer available for that role.”

“The physicians who previously worked at the clinic are not able to resume providing abortion care in West Virginia at this time, and so the plaintiffs have decided to discontinue the lawsuit, but have reserved the right to refile if and when the circumstances are right,” said Aubrey Sparks, managing attorney of the ACLU of West Virginia. “The ACLU remains committed to using every tool at our disposal to ensure that everyone in West Virginia can get the essential care they need.”

The lawsuit filed on Feb. 1 claimed West Virginia’s Unborn Child Protection Act is unconstitutional, irrational and caused irreparable harm to the clinic and its patients.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said in a press release that his office will continue to defend the state’s near-total abortion ban.

“As West Virginia’s first pro-life attorney general, I stand firm in the belief that it is our duty to protect innocent life,” Morrisey said. “We need to save as many innocent babies’ lives as legally possible. I am proud to stand for the most vulnerable of our society and the sanctity of life. My office stands ready to defend this clearly constitutional law to the fullest should this lawsuit be refiled, or against any other legal challenge.”

U.S. Supreme Court Declines To Enforce State’s Trans Youth Sports Ban

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey last month petitioned the high court to allow the ban to stay in effect while a challenge worked its way through the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to enforce a state law that prohibits transgender youth from participating in school sports.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court declined to do that, without explaining why. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.

West Virginia lawmakers passed the “Save Women’s Sports Act” in 2021. A transgender student in Harrison County challenged the law, with Lambda Legal, a national LGBTQ rights law firm, and the ACLU of West Virginia.

A U.S. District Judge in Charleston allowed the law to take effect in January, but the Fourth Circuit put it on hold once again.

The conservative Alliance Defending Freedom petitioned the Supreme Court with Morrisey, who this week announced a run for governor.

In a statement Thursday, he said he was “deeply disappointed.”

Danielle Walker New ACLU-WV Executive Director

Walker said her forte in leadership begins with being an active listener.

Del. Danielle Walker, the outspoken Monongalia County Democrat, will give up her legislative seat and her position as vice chair of the West Virginia Democratic Party to lead the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia.

Walker said her forte in leadership begins with being an active listener.

“And after you listen, you put out a call to action,” Walker said. “That can be uncomfortable and it can take some time and building, but it’s definitely doable.”

She says an initial priority will be to make the unaware in West Virginia understand how the ACLU-WV can help people to help themselves.

“ACLU has done some wonderful things and is still doing wonderful things in our state,” Walker said. “But we also have some pockets regionally, where some folks don’t even know the mission of ACLU. And so those are the target areas that we’re going to look towards.”

Walker explained what sustaining civil liberties means to her.

“It means making sure that the Constitution is represented and protected for all West Virginians and all that are travelers passing through West Virginia,” She said. “I’m talking about laborers, children, elders, disabled people, women, LGBTQ community, people of color, black people, that’s exactly what it means.”

Republican Gov. Jim Justice will appoint a Democrat from Monongalia County to serve the remainder of Walker’s term, which includes a full legislative session. The county Democratic executive committee can submit recommendations.

Walker begins her duties on April 17th, succeeding interim executive director Eli Bramwell.

ACLU-WV Petition Seeks Transparency For Alleged ‘Secret Prison Laws’

The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia has alleged the state Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation and Department of Homeland Security attempted to hide a set of legislative rules from public view.

The ACLU’s legal filing alleges Corrections and Rehabilitation provided a partial and inaccurate version of its Policy Directives Manual after it was requested by the organization in January.

It also alleges that after the ACLU requested access to the manual from the Secretary of State’s office, certain access was restricted after some time at the request of Homeland Security. The agency also allegedly requested a removal of the documents from the Secretary of State’s office, which was denied.

“What we were initially looking at, it’s unclear the extent to which that was accurate in the first place. But at this point, we don’t have access to the full document,” ACLU-WV Managing Attorney Aubrey Sparks said.

The manual is considered a legislative rule in West Virginia code. The ACLU petitioned the Kanawha County Circuit Court to order the agencies to provide a complete and accurate version of the policies, claiming the two agencies were creating “secret laws.”

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Sparks said legislative rules act differently than internal policies or procedure guides.

“The issue here is that this is a legislative rule, which means that it has the full force of law, and yet it’s not accessible to the public,” Sparks said.

The request for the DCR documents comes after a 2021 report that ACLU-WV published with findings that West Virginia has some of the nation’s deadliest jails.

“We were interested in seeing how those jails are run, if that document, that legislative rule conferred any substantive rights on the people who were incarcerated that could be useful in trying to improve the conditions of the prisons and jails,” Sparks said.

According to the legal filing, the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitations claimed the initial request for the document was treated as a Freedom of Information Act request, with some of the records removed “pursuant to W. Va. Code § 29B-1-4(a)(19),” which states certain records relating to facilities, directives and operational procedures could be used “to escape a facility, or to cause injury to another inmate, resident, or to facility personnel” if they are released.

The ACLU argued in the filing that the public still had a right of access and that further access was withheld to documents which were not initially restricted.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting reached out to the DHS and DCR for comment. The DHS declined to comment, while the DCR has not yet provided a response as of the story’s publication.

ACLU Files Federal Lawsuit Against W.Va. Abortion Ban: Women’s Health Center Of West Virginia v. Sheth

West Virginia abortion providers and advocates filed a lawsuit Wednesday in federal court challenging multiple provisions of HB 302, the state’s near-total abortion ban passed in 2022.

Plaintiffs in the case are asking for an injunction blocking the entire ban while providers make their case in court. The suit says the ban is both irrational and unconstitutional.

One complaint is that HB 302 was passed through the West Virginia Legislature in less than 24 hours, in the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey issued a statement almost immediately after the filing.

“We are ready to defend West Virginia’s abortion law to the fullest. This law reflects the will of the majority of the citizens of the state as relayed by their elected representatives in the State Legislature,” he said. “I will stand strong for the life of the unborn and will not relent in our defense of this clearly constitutional law.”

On Sept. 13, 2022, the West Virginia Legislature reconvened in a special session and passed House Bill 302, outlawing abortion in West Virginia, with limited exceptions. In instances of legal abortion, the procedure is limited to M.D.s and Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine.

West Virginia had a law on the books banning abortion since before it became a state. The original code was enacted in 1849. The state’s lone abortion clinic, the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia, joined a group of reproductive rights activists in quickly filing suit to have that 19th century law enjoined.

Now, plaintiffs in the case, Women’s Health Center of West Virginia and a local abortion provider, are asking the U.S. district court to issue an injunction blocking the entire ban pending a hearing.

Under HB 302, if any portion of the law is determined to be unconstitutional, the entire law must be struck down.

The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of West Virginia, Mountain State Justice, and the Cooley law firm filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia on behalf of Women’s Health Center of West Virginia.