PHOENIX – The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit today in federal court in Phoenix on behalf of an Arizona woman who spent five days in the custody of immigration authorities after a Pinal County Sheriff’s deputy “cited and released” her following a traffic stop.

PHOENIX – A broad coalition of bookstores, newspapers, photographers, publishers and librarians filed a lawsuit in federal court today challenging a new Arizona law that criminalizes speech protected by the First Amendment.

PHOENIX – The ACLU of Arizona and leader of Arizona’s Muslim community today sent a letter to Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery demanding he cancel a biased, anti-Muslim presentation his office plans to host next week for law enforcement personnel from across Arizona.

PHOENIX – Nearly two dozen expert reports that detail widespread problems with the Arizona Department of Corrections’ healthcare system, as well as its use of solitary confinement, were made public late Monday.

PHOENIX – Last month, Governor Jan Brewer signed an executive order creating a new Office of Faith and Community Partnerships and a Council on Faith and Community Partnerships.

Late this afternoon U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake denied the Arizona Department of Correction’s motion for summary judgment in a class-action lawsuit seeking adequate medical, mental health, and dental care for Arizona’s prisoners, and challenging the state prisons’ use of solitary confinement.

Workers with the immigrant rights group Puente today asked a federal court to stop the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and Attorney’s Office from using two contested state felony identity theft laws that target immigrant workers pending the outcome of the group’s constitutional challenge.

TUCSON – Araceli Rodriguez, the mother of slain Mexican teen Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, filed a federal lawsuit today in Arizona to pursue justice for her son, who was killed nearly two years ago by U.S. Border Patrol agents, identified only as John Does in the lawsuit.

PHOENIX – It took the state of Arizona nearly two hours to execute Joseph Wood by lethal injection today. According to his attorneys, Mr. Wood was “gasping and snorting for more than an hour.” Alessandra Soler, executive director of the ACLU of Arizona, issued the following statement.