News & Commentary

The shooting of an unarmed teen in Ferguson, Illinois brought the reality of the militarization of local police to the forefront of the nightly news and front pages of our newspapers. The ACLU has been investigating this issue, and in June of this year, published the report War Comes Home: – The Excessive Militarization of American Police.

Two weeks ago, in Kitchen v. Herbert, the 10thCircuit Court of Appeals struck down Utah’s constitutional ban on same-sex couples’ ability to marry. The court held that “The Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right to marry, establish a family, raise children, and enjoy the full protection of a state’s marital laws.”

Last week the ACLU of Wyoming staff attended the 26th Annual Conference of the National Consortium on Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts hosted by the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation in Cody. Keynote addresses from Honorable Judge Lance Ito, former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, and former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson set the tone for the entire conference. Each of them spoke about their experiences with Heart Mountain, and detailed how these experiences impacted their respective professional careers.

We believe that the character of society should be judged on how we treat our most vulnerable members. The ACLU of Wyoming advocates for the safe and humane treatment of prisoners – both for their sake while they are incarcerated and for society’s sake when they are released.

The Wyoming Legislative session ended last week on a disappointing note with Representatives Bob Nicholas (R- Cheyenne) and Tim Stubson (R-Casper) destroyingSF 28 Post- Conviction actual innocence and SF30 Compensation for persons exonerated based on DNA evidence. Rep. Nicholas amended both bills to include onerous hearing provisions that indicated that he was on a crusade to ensure that those wrongly incarcerated would not be compensated for the miscarriage of justice.  The House members refused to compromise on the amendments in the conference committee which led to both bills being indefinitely postponed. The Casper Star-Tribune, Wyoming Tribune Eagle and WyoFile all wrote excellent articles on this travesty. Both bills started with good support on introduction and an understanding with most legislators and observers that the bills were needed, if not long overdue. It is frustrating to see such willful pique in legislators. 

Yesterday, four couples and Wyoming Equality filed the first-ever challenge to Wyoming’s laws on marriage in the case of Courage v. Wyoming. While we are not directly involved in this lawsuit, the ACLU of Wyoming stands in solidarity with Wyoming Equality and the plaintiffs who are arguing that current law violates the Wyoming’s Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection and due process.

As usual the first week of the 2014 Wyoming legislative budget session was brisk and many non-budget bills had been filed for consideration. During a budget session any bill that is not an appropriations or budget bill must receive a 2/3 vote for introduction.  A number of bills received that 2/3’s vote this year giving committees a lot of work to accomplish in the first weeks of the session. Thursday February 20, 2014 was the last day for bills to be reported out of the Committee in the House of Origin. Those bills that were not reported out were effectively dead for the rest of the session.  The last Medicaid expansion bill to be considered was not reported out of committee and so died in committee on Wednesday the 19th. The Chairman of the Committee did not hold a vote on the bill and effectively killed it without having any of the members on record with a vote.

Sorry, Wyoming. You have the worst gender wage gap in America. Our state ranks dead last in the nation for the gap between the wages of men and women whether calculated by year round work or measured by hourly or weekly wages. Nationally, women working full-time make on average 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. In Wyoming, women earned only 67 cents for every dollar earned by men.To honor the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the ACLU Women’s Rights Project has joined a coalition of national and state-based women’s rights organizations for the Equal Pay Today! Campaign which calls for an end to the gender wage gap that exists in nearly every industry and profession in the country. They are joining together to call for action to end the practices and close the loopholes in existing laws that contribute to shocking wage gap. These practices include: 

Because the character of society is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members. In a country that imprisons more people than any other in the world, someone must look out for the vulnerable human beings behind bars — both for their sake while they are incarcerated and for society's sake when they are released. In fact, about 97% of Wyoming prisoners will eventually return to our communities. How we treat prisoners should give us an idea of what we should expect from them when they come home.Data compiled from complaints received from prisoners in Wyoming is being released in the second annual report “Incarceration In Wyoming,” which provides details about the numbers and nature of complaints the organization received in 2012. Deficiencies in medical and mental health care continue to top the list of complaints from prisoners in Wyoming. Poor medical and mental health care generated thirty percent of complaints from prisons, and well over a quarter of the complaints from jails. We hope that making this information available will increase public awareness, accountability and transparency of detention facilities in Wyoming. Promoting humane conditions of confinement, consistent with constitutional protections like health, safety and human dignity, is one of our highest priorities. We have also started to look at the effects of solitary confinement on prisoners in Wyoming – the practice of confining a prisoner alone in a cell for 22‐24 hours a day with little human contact and severe restrictions on privileges, such as reading material, television, visitation and participation in rehabilitative group activities. There is a popular misconception that solitary is used only for the most violent and dangerous prisoners. In fact, many low‐risk prisoners may be housed in solitary because they have broken minor rules or filed lawsuits. At WDOC institutions, 506 prisoners were held in solitary confinement in the past year, 146 of them diagnosed as mentally ill.Wyoming has no statutes that address minimum standards for jails or prisons. The Wyoming ACLU is the only agency in the state that will investigate or review inmate complaints regarding the conditions of confinement. “Incarceration” includes a directory of all Wyoming Department of Corrections institutions and county jails, along with “Know Your Rights” information. We distribute these resource guides to inform prisoners of their constitutional rights based on the nature of their complaint. Download below:“Incarceration in Wyoming: 2012 Report on Prison and Jail Complaints” (in pdf)