Amanda Cefalu, Kutak Rock attorney in the firm’s Minneapolis office, is participating in Minnesota’s U.S. District Court’s first remote jury trial. The case, Myriam Parada v. Anoka County, involves federal civil rights litigation and is expected to last three days.

Since 2017, Ms. Cefalu has served as pro bono co-counsel on behalf of the ACLU-MN against the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office and the Coon Rapids Police Department for unlawfully arresting and jailing Myriam Parada after she was the victim of a traffic accident. The ACLU-MN argued in their initial lawsuit that Ms. Parada was unlawfully detained because of her race and national origin. 

In July 2018, Minnesota District Court Judge John R. Tunheim denied a motion by the Coon Rapids Police Department and Coon Rapids Police Officer Nicolas Oman to dismiss Myriam Parada’s lawsuit against them. In August 2020, the ACLU-MN won a partial summary judgment finding that the Anoka County jail’s policy of referring all foreign-born detainees to U.S. immigration officials, regardless of their immigration status, violated Ms. Parada’s equal protection rights under the 14th Amendment. 

The issue of damages and Ms. Parada’s false imprisonment claim will be decided by a jury this week.

Attorneys working on this case include Amanda Cefalu and Nathan Boone of Kutak Rock LLP; Alain Baudry of Saul Ewing; and Ian Bratlie and Teresa Nelson of the ACLU-MN.