On May 8, 2017, the Firm, along with the ACLU of Mississippi and the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a class action lawsuit in Mississippi against the Madison County Sheriff’s Department over its unconstitutional policing program to systematically target Black residents for illegal searches and seizures of persons, homes, cars and property. The lawsuit, which Simpson Thacher is handling pro bono, challenges the Madison County Sheriff’s Department’s coordinated, top-down program of selectively subjecting Black communities to unconstitutional policing tactics, including show-ID-and-search pedestrian checkpoints, roving roadblocks, “jump outs” by plainclothes deputies in unmarked cars and warrantless home invasions.
The Firm’s role in the case was featured in Law360 in an article that can be accessed here (subscription required). The case also has received national media attention, including in The New York Times, The Washington Post (subscription required), CBS News, The Guardian and Huffington Post, among other outlets.
The Simpson Thacher team includes Jonathan Youngwood, Janet Gochman, Isaac Rethy, Nihara Choudhri, Monica Chan, Bonnie Jarrett and Chris Jumin Lee (Litigation).