TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana has filed a lawsuit against the Indiana State Police for allegedly interfering with those who protested in opposition to the July executions at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute.
According to the ACLU, State Police closed the roads leading to the prison and put significant barriers in place ahead of the executions, forcing demonstrators to protest nearly two miles away from the prison. The lawsuit claims these restrictions violate the protesters’ First Amendment rights.
“These restrictions obstruct one of the most fundamental rights protected by the Constitution, political speech. There is absolutely no justification for this overly broad ‘no-protest zone,'" said Ken Falk, legal director at the ACLU of Indiana, in a press release. "The Indiana State Police are severely compromising protesters’ ability to express themselves and to express their opposition to the death penalty while in sight of the prison.”
The complaint states the only other option for protesters to get close to the facility was to be bussed into a fenced-in area on prison grounds, which they said would have been far removed from the death chamber. This also would have required protesters to stay for an unknown amount of time with little shelter in extreme heat until the execution occurred.
The lawsuit requests that the U.S. District Court of Southern Indiana enter a preliminary injunction allowing the organizations and individual plaintiffs to engage in protests immediately outside of the main entrance of the prison,
Several executions at the prison are scheduled for August and September.
The lawsuit was also filed on behalf of Death Penalty Action, Indiana Abolition Coalition and Providence of Saint-Mary-of-the-Woods Indiana.
Click here to read the full complaint.
