Legislation

The ACLU has consistently opposed the imposition of mandatory minimum sentencing terms because they are ineffective, costly, eliminate individualized consideration of the offender and the circumstances of the offense, and place too much power in the hands of prosecutors instead of neutral judges.

This legislation, strongly supported by the ACLU, would have repealed an outmoded statute which declares any person serving a life sentence in prison “civilly dead".

In opposing these bills, we noted that harsh legislative restrictions on the rights of sex offenders are counterproductive and can promote recidivism by making it extremely difficult for them to reintegrate into the community.

Often, seemingly innocuous licensing bills have provisions including expansive and vague language which could render individuals with a criminal background, no matter what crimes they have been convicted of or how long ago their conviction was, unable to procure certain occupational licenses.

This bill was designed to strengthen a law that requires courts to consider a criminal defendant’s ability to pay before assessing exorbitant costs, fines or fees.

The state's medical marijuana law was crafted to put a high priority on patient privacy, but that consideration has been placed on the back burner a number of times in recent years in the name of public safety.

The Department of Health legislation creates a multi-disciplinary team to review overdose deaths in conjunction with the state Medical Examiner, in order to identify emerging trends in drug overdoses and, hopefully, reduce deaths in the future.