Earlier today, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois joined a case in federal court in Chicago challenging the dysfunctional, mismanaged system that fails to adequately serve the nearly 50,000 persons in Illinois prisons. It is clear that the Illinois Department of Corrections is not providing timely, appropriate health care to prisoners, doing great harm to many and putting others at risk of death.

A comprehensive study of health care in Illinois prisons conducted by the John Howard Association revealed unconscionable problems with the health care provided to prisoners in Illinois. Prisoners often wait dangerously long periods of time to see a nurse, let alone a physician. They wait for more than a year, in too many instances, to get dental care. Some of the individual stories are even more disturbing.

A prisoner in the Pontiac correctional facility complained of severe eye and ear pain. A nurse told him to stop using Q-tips to clean his ears. He never saw a doctor. When the pain persisted for months, he received an MRI -- but only after filing a grievance.   Nearly a month went by without anyone reporting the results of the MRI.  Only when the prisoner asked to see a doctor and get another MRI (he'd discovered a lump on his body), he was casually informed that the first test revealed a large tumor on his brain. That prisoner lost most of his hearing and vision on his left side and suffered partial paralysis.

"These reports and the stories of prisoners who unnecessarily suffer – and even risk death – make clear that we must reform the provision of health care in Illinois prisons," said Ben Wolf, ACLU of Illinois associate legal director. "The State is failing its constitutional obligation to provide appropriate care for the prisoners in its custody."

The case that the ACLU of Illinois joined today, Lippert, et. al, v. Godinez, was filed in 2010 on behalf of six (6) Illinois inmates. The case was filed by lawyers from the Chicago office of Seyfarth, Shaw LLP, later joined by the Chicago office of Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP and the Uptown People's Law Center.  These lawyers invited the ACLU of Illinois to join the lawsuit, owing to the organization's experience in large, systemic reform cases.

We will update you on this matter as required.

President Obama was in Chicago on Wednesday for a fundraiser, where he spoke of his support for the Illinois marriage bill, The Sun-Times reports. The bill is currently waiting to be heard in the Illinois House before moving on to the governor's desk.

“I wrestled with this for a long time, and I’m absolutely convinced it’s the right thing to do, and we have to make sure that wherever we go that the essence of America is that everyone is treated equally under the law, without exception,” he said.

Read the whole thing.

In an ACLU case of national importance, a federal judge issued a crucial ruling Friday in a case challenging the practices of Maricopa County ruled Friday on the case concerning Sheriff Joe Arpaio.  The National ACLU Immigration Project and the ACLU of Arizona successfully challenged the Sheriff Department’s use of racial profiling during raids and traffic stops.

Judge G. Murray Snow of United States District Court delivered a 142 page decision criticizing the practices of Sheriff Arpaio and his deputies:

According to a story in The New York Times, the judge said the “sheriff relied on racial profiling and illegal detentions to target Latinos, using their ethnicity as the main basis for suspecting they were in the country illegally. Many of the people targeted were American citizens or legal residents.

“In an immigration enforcement context,” Judge Snow ruled, the sheriff’s office “did not believe that it constituted racial profiling to consider race as one factor among others in making law enforcement decisions.” In fact, he said its plans and policies confirmed that, “in the context of immigration enforcement,” deputies “could consider race as one factor among others.”

The ruling prohibits the sheriff’s office from using “race or Latino ancestry” as a factor in deciding to stop any vehicle with Latino occupants, or as a factor in deciding whether they may be in the country without authorization.

It also prohibits deputies from reporting a vehicle’s Latino occupants to federal immigration authorities or detaining, holding or arresting them, unless there is more than just a “reasonable belief” that they are in the country illegally. To detain them, the ruling said, the deputies must also have reasonable suspicion that the occupants are violating the state’s human-trafficking and employment laws or committing other crimes.”

The ACLU of Illinois congratulates the National ACLU and the ACLU of Arizona on this big win.