Founded by Carl Messineo and Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, the organization focuses on cases regarding free speech and dissent, domestic spying and surveillance, police misconduct, and government transparency.
In addition to its litigation work in the courts, the Partnership also pursues freedom of information requests to obtain public records relating to police surveillance of activist groups.
The group argued in court that the D.C. police department, the FBI, and other government agencies unlawfully suppressed dissent and engaged in "preemptive mass arrests, spying and brutality."
The PCJF attracted attention for uncovering new facts about D.C. police and FBI conduct, including efforts to infiltrate and disrupt nonviolent activist groups.
[6][7] The Partnership, representing four D.C. residents, alleged the "military-style" checkpoints led to "widespread civil rights violations" and that the District had "engaged in an unprecedented and unconstitutional system of suspicionless stops and seizures.
[7] In 2010, after an eight-year-long litigation battle, PCJF secured a $8.25 million settlement of a class action arising from the mass arrests of nearly 400 people in Pershing Park in Washington, D.C., in September 2002.
"[3] The local American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) chapter was initially co-counsel with the PCJF in Becker v. District of Columbia, a federal lawsuit for false arrest brought by hundreds of protesters who were arrested at demonstrations against the IMF and World Bank in April 2000, but the groups split over differences in legal tactics and approaches.
Verheyden-Hilliard, the executive director, said that the documents showed that the FBI has acted improperly by collecting "information on people's free-speech actions" and entering it into "unregulated databases, a vast storehouse of information widely disseminated to a range of law-enforcement and, apparently, private entities" (see Domestic Security Alliance Council).
[14] In 2014, the PCJF obtained an additional 4,000 pages of unclassified documents through a Freedom of Information Act request, showing "details of the scrutiny of the Occupy protests in 2011 and 2012 by law enforcement officers, federal officials, security contractors and others.
Even if the officers apply the law in good faith – without discriminatory motive or bias – the possibility of inconsistent enforcement can chill speech.
The protesters specifically alleged that police had allowed the protestors onto the bridge, and had even led them "on the roadway, only to surround them minutes later with orange netting," essentially "luring them into a trap."
The case addressed whether activists had a constitutional right to demonstrate on the sidewalks of Pennsylvania Avenue during the Inauguration Day parade.