SCSJ files a "friend of the court" brief with SCOTUS

The Southern Coalition for Social Justice yesterday filed an Amicus Curiae (“friend of the court”) brief with the United States Supreme Court in the case of City and County of San Francisco, et al. v. Teresa Sheehan, which is scheduled for oral argument on March 23, 2015.  The brief, filed on behalf of the Policy Council on Law Enforcement and Mental Illness, a South Carolina-based organization representing the interests of persons with mental illness, argues that the Americans with Disabilities Act should vigorously apply in arrest and civil commitment scenarios involving persons known by the police to be suffering from mental illness.  The Respondent, Teresa Sheehan, was shot five times, including once in the face, by San Francisco police officers who had responded to the group home in which she was living and forced entry into her locked second-story bedroom following a request from Sheehan’s social worker that she be taken into custody for a mental health assessment.