Sexual Abuse Litigation and Illegal Strip Search

We also continued to pursue cases of sexual abuse by law enforcement officers and others, illegal strip searches, and other cases involving gender-based violence.  We successfully represented a Nigerian doctor who was strip searched at O’Hare airport, a woman who was illegally strip searched in the police lockup pursuant to an unconstitutional policy and practice,  a woman who was strip searched on the street by a “repeater” cop, and obtained a large settlement for a woman who was sexually abused by her priest and psychologist. We also represented a young woman who was picked up on a specious curfew charge by a Chicago police officer who took her to his house and raped her at gunpoint and included the City as a defendant under a Monell policy and practice theory, on the grounds that the officer was an obvious problem who should never have been hired, and that his prior history with the Department clearly mandated that he should have been fired well before the rape. In Czajkowski v. City of Chicago, the office  represented the wife of a Chicago police officer who was a victim of spousal abuse, and successfully alleged that the City had a policy and practice of failing to discipline officers who committed acts of domestic violence. We obtained an award for our client of $625,000. We also obtained a substantial settlement from the City of Waukegan for the family of a woman who was killed by a police informer after the police were told of his repeated threats against her but took no action.  Beginning in 1997, we filed a series of cases challenging Pontiac Correctional Center’s practice of conducting random strip searches of visitors to the prison, obtaining money damages and forcing the prison to change its policies.

HISTORY BY SECTION

Early Days
The Murder of Fred Hampton
Government Surveillance
Representing the Panthers in Downstate Illinois
Attica New York Prison Riots
The Fred Hampton Murder Trial
Prisoner Rights Work
Puerto Rican Independence Movement and the Puerto Rican Community
Fred Hampton Appeal
George Jones Street Files and False Imprisonment
Representing Demonstrators, Protestors, and Activists
Greensboro
Puerto Rico Work Continues
Police Brutality and Torture
Continuing to Represent Demonstrators and Activists
The Attica Prison Civil Case
Continuing Work in Solidarity With Puerto Rico
Fighting the Death Penalty
Sexual Abuse Litigation and Illegal Strip Search
Back to the Supreme Court
The 1996 Democratic Convention
Policy and Practice Cases
False Arrests and Convictions
Continuing to Defend Dissent
Continuing the Fight for Justice in the Chicago Police Torture Cases
Criminal Defense for Civil Rights Abuses
Jail Suicide
Opposing the Criminalization of the LGBTQ Community
People’s Law Office and The National Lawyers Guild