Victory!

For citizens who want to advocate for political change at the local level, the First Amendment right to neighborhood canvassing is crucial.

The Supreme Court has long afforded the highest level of constitutional protection to those who walk door-to-door for the purpose of speaking with willing and interested residents about political ideas. But in Wixom, the city council enacted an ordinance that allows entire neighborhoods to erect signs prohibiting door-to-door political canvassing, such as asking residents whether they are registered to vote.

One local political activist was canvassing in support of Democratic candidates a few weeks before the November 2018 midterm elections when a resident threatened to call the police if he did not immediately leave the neighborhood. Attempts to persuade the city to repeal their ordinance were unsuccessful, so in April 2019 the ACLU of Michigan filed a federal lawsuit against the city and neighborhood association. After we filed a motion for preliminary injunction, Wixom’s city council repealed the ordinance and the neighborhood association removed its anti-canvassing signs. The case settled in September 2019.

(Action for Liberation v. City of Wixom; ACLU Attorneys Bonsitu Kitaba-Gaviglio and Michael J. Steinberg; Cooperating Attorneys Heather Cummings and Sheila Cummings.)

Benton Harbor, Michigan has a population that is 85 percent African American, and the poverty rate is 48 percent.  By 2011 the school district’s debt had ballooned to $18 million.  In 2018 Dr. Robert Herrera was appointed as the district’s “CEO” and he was given four years to turn the district around.  However, Dr. Herrera resigned in 2019 and newly elected Governor Gretchen Whitmer proposed closing the district’s high school, igniting a storm of controversy across the state.

 In August 2019 the ACLU of Michigan sent a letter warning the governor that closing the school would eliminate one of the only remaining educational, cultural and civic centers in a community that has endured decades of discrimination, marginalization and poverty.  The letter also urged the governor not to appoint an emergency manager, as doing so would deny the people of Benton Harbor the right to democratic self-government.  Subsequently, Governor Whitmer initiated a working committee made up of diverse interests in the Benton Harbor community to examine options for preserving the high school.  In January 2020 the ACLU met with the committee and provided recommendations.  

(ACLU Attorney Mark P. Fancher.)

For over a decade, the ACLU has fought against Michigan’s cruel policy of allowing youth to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In 2010 we filed a class action lawsuit in federal court challenging the practice as unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment, resulting in a 2018 victory allowing hundreds of youth to be considered for early release and an eventual settlement in 2020. In 2021 and 2022 we joined the Juvenile Law Center in filing friend-of-the-court briefs in multiple cases that had reached the Michigan Supreme Court. In a series of opinions released in July 2022, the Michigan Supreme Court agreed with our position that the Michigan Constitution provides greater protections to youth facing life sentences. The Court held that a life sentence cannot be automatic for 18-year-olds, and judges must consider their youth at sentencing like they would for those under 18. The Court also held that for children charged with lesser, second-degree offenses, a life sentence (including with the possibility of parole) is categorically unconstitutional and cannot be imposed. Finally, in cases where prosecutors are still allowed to seek life-without-parole sentences for youth, the Court held that they must meet a “clear and convincing evidence” burden of proof. Hundreds of youth will now be eligible for resentencing based on these new, more protective, constitutional rules. (Hill v. Snyder; People v. Poole; People v. Stovall; People v. Taylor; ACLU of Michigan Attorneys Bonsitu Kitaba-Gaviglio and Dan Korobkin; National ACLU Attorneys Steven Watt and Brandon Buskey; co-counsel Marsha Levick and Riya Shah of the Juvenile Law Center, Tessa Bialek and Sarah Russell of Quinnipiac University School of Law, and Deborah LaBelle.)