Supreme Court Term 2025-2026

On October 14, 2025, the United States military carried out an illegal missile strike that killed Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, two Trinidadian men who were traveling by boat from Venezuela to their homes in Las Cuevas, Trinidad and Tobago. The American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School filed suit on behalf of Lenore Burnley, Mr. Joseph’s mother, and Sallycar Korasingh, Mr. Samaroo’s sister, seeking redress and accountability for these extrajudicial killings pursuant to the Death on the High Seas Act and the Alien Tort Statute.

In 2023, public reporting revealed that a group of sheriff’s deputies in Rankin County, Mississippi, had been terrorizing the County’s residents for nearly two decades. The deputies, who called themselves the “Goon Squad,” used torture, violence, and other abusive practices to coerce confessions and extract or manufacture evidence. The Rankin County District Attorney’s Office (RCDAO), in turn, used the Goon Squad to prosecute people. Seeking to understand whether the RCDAO has taken any actions to address the Goon Squad’s misconduct since it became public, the ACLU of Mississippi and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a public records request with the RCDAO. But the RCDAO refused to produce any documents other than a self-serving press statement. Accordingly, the ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, along with the ACLU of Mississippi and the Center for Constitutional Rights, filed suit arguing that the RCDAO’s failure to produce responsive records violates the Mississippi Public Records Act.