And Justice for All

The Baltimore Sun

The group began in 1931 with the case of Euel Lee, an African-American man accused of murder on the Eastern Shore, threatened with lynching and denied counsel. His predicament alarmed several Marylanders, who had heard of a national civil lib? erties organization that had been established 11 years earlier to address civil injustices.

Led by Elisabeth Gilman, the daughter of the Johns Hopkins University?s first president, the group es? tablished a Maryland chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The group ultimately won Lee a change of venue in his trial, though he was eventually executed. For three-quarters of a century, the Maryland ACLU pursued cases it thought were integral to upholding the na? tion?s Constitution, and spoke out when it believed laws were violated. It has a saying: ?Sooner or later, everyone needs us.? But the nonprofit organi? zation is well aware that some people consider it overzealous. Its work on post-Sept. 11 issues such as priva? cy rights and governmental intrusion is no less conten? tious.

Through the years, it has represented a man who refused to state a belief in God and challenged the state to provide adequate education for Baltimores poorest children. The vignettes that follow pdate three of its cases that had national implications:

Kevin Knussman arrived home in January 1995 at 3:30 a.m. from a night shift to the sound of his newborn daughter, Paige, wailing.

The Maryland State Police paramedic from Easton rushed to her and found his wife, Kim, in the same room, so overcome with exhaustion that she didn't hear Paige's cries.

Kim was suffering from pre-eclampsia, a disorder that occurs during pregnancy and postpartum. Symptoms include high blood pressure, headaches and changes in vision. Clearly, both mother and baby needed Knussman to stay home and be the family's primary caregiver.

When he asked for extended leave, the state police denied the request, even though a federal law had recently been passed giving all workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave. A Maryland law also allowed "primary care providers" up to 30 days of paid leave after the birth or adoption of a baby.

The police gave Knussman 10 leave days and said that if he took another day off he would be declared absent without leave. Stuck between the cares of home and the demands of work, Knussman didn't take another day off.

Instead, he took his employer to court.

His case was among the first gender-discrimination cases filed under the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act, which at the time was viewed as a protection for women who need time off after the birth or adoption of a child.

"He didn't fit the stereotype of what people may have thought the law was about," said Jocelyn Frye, general counsel for the National Partnership for Women and Families. "His case put a face on the [FMLA] and made it a family issue."

Knussman became known as Trooper Dad. By the time the 1995 ACLU-assisted lawsuit went to trial in 1999, Paige was almost 5.

Three years later, Knussman was awarded $40,000 for emotional distress and an undisclosed six-figure amount in attorney's fees. To Knussman's supporters, equally important as the money was the fact that the case illustrated that the FMLA could not be ignored.

"It shows employers have to take these laws seriously," said Laura Kessler, an associate law professor at the University of Utah.

The man who spent 23 years as a state trooper, mostly as a helicopter paramedic, has since retired. Paige, now a preteen, recently won a contest to be an honorary batgirl during an Orioles game. His wife recovered long ago from her ailment. And the Knuss- mans had no family-leave worries when their now-10-year-old daughter, Hope, was born.

As he looks back on his battle, Knussman acknowledges mixed emotions. "I wouldn't condemn anyone else for not going through it," he said. "It's hard to fight the state, the government, because they have unlimited resources."

Knussman, who now works as a paramedic seven days a month, relishes the nationwide support he received. He still receives e-mails from people seeking to challenge employers for family leave permission.

"Most people would walk away, and at one point, my attorneys even asked, 'You want to stop?'" he said, recalling his lengthy legal battle.

"I said, 'We can't stop. We've plotted a course here, and we have to go through that course.'"

Halting 'Driving While Black'

The two kids in the back seat of the car stared as if their boredom had been shattered by something they don't often see. They pressed their mouths and cheeks against the passenger-side window, their eyes blinked as twirling police car lights flashed.

Robert Wilkins and family were the object of their attention. They were the reason why traffic along Interstate 68 in Western Maryland had come to a crawl on a rainy morning before dawn -- despite there being no accident nor any obstructions in the road. Motorists slowed to get a good look -- at the Wilkinses, at the state police and at a police dog sniffing every inch of the Wilkinses' vehicle.

Neither Wilkins, an African-American lawyer who lives in Washington, nor anyone in his family had done anything wrong that morning of May 8, 1992. In fact, he, his uncle, aunt and cousin were returning from his hometown of Muncie, Ind., from his grandfather's funeral. Still, a Maryland state trooper stopped their car and requested a search for drugs.

What left the Wilkinses more astonished was the trooper's reasoning: They were black, they were driving a rental car with Virginia plates and black drug dealers had been using I-68 for trafficking. When they objected, the officer said he was merely following procedure.

After the ordeal ended, Wilkins refused to let it go. He, his family members and the ACLU brought a case against the Maryland State Police, and, in the process, ushered in a term that has become synonymous for African-Americans being pulled over by the police for no apparent reason: Driving While Black.

"I remember us standing there looking like a rogues gallery," said Wilkins, recalling how his attention turned to a family of four driving past. "Their noses were smushed against the window," he said, "and I'm thinking ... this is the kind of education they're getting about African-Americans because this is what they see all the time."

Wilkins and the ACLU proved the family was unfairly targeted in part because the officer's comments that the state police were targeting blacks in rental cars contradicted the department's claim that it trains officers to be racially unbiased and doesn't implement racially based policy.

But the plaintiffs weren't finished there. "Very early [the state] offered money to settle the case, and that's very nice," said Wilkins, who once interned with the ACLU's National Prison Project in Washington. "But I was more interested in making sure this stops. They had to agree to our terms as far as changing some of their policies.

"It took us about a year to haggle out a settlement. But what was important is that we got them to agree to adopt a new nondiscrimination policy, to train people in that policy and to require troopers to sign and acknowledge it," he said. "Most important to me was a requirement of keeping data of all stops and searches and the reasons for those stops and searches. They had to give us that data on a quarterly basis for several years out."

Eventually, Wilkins and his family received a total of $50,000 and about $45,000 in attorney's fees. Once they began analyzing data, however, they saw significant racial disparities in state police traffic stops. That was particularly true along Interstate 95, where five times as many black motorists were stopped and searched as white motorists, though the number of times drugs or illegal contraband were found was the same. That led to another suit by Wilkins and the ACLU. It is pending.

A few years ago, a Maryland state trooper stopped Wilkins' car late at night along Route 295 after Wilkins had left an Orioles game eager to get home quickly. Wilkins, who acknowledges he was driving too fast, wondered if the officer would recognize him as the original plaintiff in the racial-profiling case.

He didn't. In fact, the officer let Wilkins off with a warning.

"I said, 'Thanks,'" Wilkins said. "I've got no problems with police officers, and I'm always very respectful of them because I know they have a difficult job, especially stopping people on the side of the road when it's dark. I always try to be by the book."

joseph.burris@baltsun.com

ACLU timeline

1931:

Establishes the Maryland branch.

1953:

Opposes prosecutions of Johns Hopkins University professors accused of perjury under the Smith Act, a federal anti-subversive law.

1968:

Represents citizens jailed for violating Baltimore's curfew imposed to help stop the rioting after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

1970:

Represents actress and activist Jane Fonda, among others, after she and others ask Fort Meade soldiers to sign an anti-war petition.

1988:

Represents the Ku Klux Klan after the white supremacist group is denied a permit to march down Main Street in Thurmont.

1991:

Brings one of the nation's first cases under the Americans with Disabilities Act as it represents inmates at a Hagerstown prison.

[Source: ACLU of Maryland]

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