Dear John,

I usually only write to you with word of major victories and case developments, but with so many wins early in the year I decided to make an exception and highlight several of them at once!

Here’s what our supporters helped us accomplish just 31 days into the new year:

• As you heard last week, we secured a resounding win for the Fourth Amendment and against civil forfeiture on behalf Paul and Jennifer Snitko—and hundreds of others in our class action lawsuit—with the 9th Circuit unanimously ruling that the FBI’s raid of over 700 security deposit boxes at US Private Vaults was unconstitutional and ordering the FBI to destroy the records created during the searches of the security boxes.
  
  

• Stephen Lara is one step closer to justice after a district court denied the state’s motion to dismiss the Marine veteran’s lawsuit challenging Nevada’s civil forfeiture laws—which permit police to take people’s property without showing that they committed a crime.
  
  

• Retired engineer Wayne Nutt can speak freely without having to get a state engineering license—something he never needed during his career—with the state declining to appeal a judge’s December ruling that a North Carolina licensing board violated the First Amendment when it ordered Wayne to stop expressing opinions about engineering without a license.
  
  

• Akhila Murphey and Donna Peizer can continue their work as end-of-life doulas providing emotional and practical support to the dying and their loved ones, with a federal district court ruling that California’s onerous demands—including building a full-scale funeral home—violated our clients’ constitutional rights.
  
  

• Dottie and Omar Rivera now enjoy heightened privacy in their own home when a judge ruled that municipal rental inspectors cannot barge into homes over the objections of tenants and landlords alike. Now, the borough of Pottstown, Pennsylvania must provide notice to renters and landlords before searching their property.
  
  

With these triumphs, IJ is vindicating the rights of our clients while setting lasting precedent that unleashes the potential of all Americans to pursue their vision of the good life. And we’re just getting started.

I look forward to keeping you updated on many more victories in the coming year.

Scott

Scott G. Bullock

President and Chief Counsel

Institute for Justice

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