ACLU lawyer makes case for liberties for all

9-10-2012 Indiana:

Falk finds common ground among state residents with cases

The contents of Ken Falk’s office tell a story about what it’s like to be the state’s leading civil liberties lawyer.

He has a drawer full of hate mail along with thank-you notes of gratitude, a shelf of rocks that were thrown through his window, and a goose-quill pen from the counsel table inside the U.S. Supreme Court in a frame hanging on the wall.

The last item is a reminder of a case he argued in front on the nation’s high court in 2000 and the ruling handed down in his favor: The justices found it was unconstitutional for Indiana police to set up roadblocks and pull over motorists at random to conduct drug searches. The court called the practice a violation of Americans’ right to privacy.

Falk, 58, is the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana. He’s brought many high-profile cases that have infuriated some people along the way. His clients have included the Ku Klux Klan, the NAACP, Planned Parenthood and anti-abortion protesters.

But the 2000 roadblock case is one of his favorite to talk about because it illustrates, he said, how “we tend to take our constitutional rights for granted till we lose them.”

Falk had filed the case as a class-action lawsuit, argued on behalf of all citizens of Indiana. “The interesting thing about that case,” Falk said, “is that I received calls from people who said, ‘I never thought I’d call the ACLU about anything except to yell at you. But nobody is going ...continued... by Maureen Hayden