LOS ANGELES - In a breakthrough ruling that affects more than 25,000 California children suffering from serious mental illness, U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz has ordered an expert to oversee the expansion of home- and community-based mental health services for children who would otherwise end up in costly group homes and institutions.

The order was handed down this week in the case of Emily Q., a young Latino woman whose problems escalated rather than improved as she was shuttled from placement to placement.

When disability rights advocates met Emily in 1997 at Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk, she was 18 and had spent more than half her life in mental institutions, in isolation and restraints or heavily sedated because of her violent behavior. Emily said her outbursts came out of her desperation. 'I am terrified that I might end up here forever," she said.

In 1998, advocates filed a lawsuit, Emily Q. v. Bont', against state officials, arguing that children in mental institutions and group homes could be better served by offering one-to-one behavior aides or 'coaches' in their homes and communities. In 2001, the federal court granted a judgment in favor of the plaintiff children, ordering the state and counties to offer a new Medi-Cal mental health service known as Therapeutic Behavioral Services.

This week Judge Matz found the state program still did not comply with his judgment. The court-ordered reforms seek to shift children from expensive group homes to cheaper and more effective home-based services. Currently more than 9,000 children are in group homes, at a cost to taxpayers of $500 million a year. In contrast, behavior coaches cost less than $15,000 per year and enable children to remain safely at home with their families.

'Emily's case opened the state's eyes to the tragedy of abandoning children in institutions where their mental illness often worsens,' said ACLU/SC senior counsel Melinda Bird, lead attorney in the case. 'The court's decision this week means California must increase its efforts to keep children in home-like settings, where research shows they are more likely to improve.'

Emily was finally released from state hospital into outpatient care in October 2003. Today she is living in a small house outside Los Angeles, where she volunteers in the community and has joined a church group. In nearly four years she has not had a single hospitalization, nor has she injured herself or anyone else.

'Emily's success story shows both the desperate need for reform, and the wonderful possibilities that emerge when it occurs,' said Bird.

Judge Matz has ordered the parties to report back to him by October 15, 2007 with names of the proposed special master to oversee future compliance. Other counsel in the case are Robert Newman of the Western Center on Law and Poverty, Michael Kluk and Maggie Roberts of Protection and Advocacy, Inc., Jim Preis of Mental Health Advocacy Services of Los Angeles and Ira Burnim of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.

LOS ANGELES - More than a year ago leading Muslim Americans requested basic information about FBI surveillance in Southern California, seeking to calm community fears of spying at mosques and surveillance of community groups and community leaders. To date, the government has turned over only four pages of documents.

Today, the ACLU of Southern California filed a federal lawsuit claiming the government's incomplete and long-delayed response violated the Freedom of Information Act.

'The government has squandered an opportunity to build trust with Muslim Americans and broken the law by failing to release information in a timely and complete way,' said ACLU/SC staff attorney Ranjana Natarajan. 'If the FBI is serious about addressing the concerns of Muslim Americans in Southern California that their religious rights are protected, they should release the records this lawsuit seeks.'

In May 2006, 11 Muslim American leaders and community groups filed a joint FOIA request to the FBI for all records concerning the agency's surveillance and investigations of themselves or their groups since January 2001. They hoped to shed light on practices that have been reported in the press, such as nuclear radiation monitoring at mosques and alleged spying on mosques by federal agents.

'We are disappointed in the government's response, particularly because community understanding is crucial to the goals we share,' said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations of the Greater Los Angeles Area. 'National security is a great concern for American Muslims, and we take it seriously. In the same way, we take our religious freedom seriously.'

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the FBI has stepped up its counter-terrorism investigations, particularly of Muslim Americans. After the attacks, the FBI interviewed thousands of Muslim men and detained many who had not been accused of a crime. Several of the plaintiffs in the ACLU/SC's lawsuit have been personally questioned by federal agents.

'We are only exercising our Constitutional right and fulfilling our civic duty in demanding transparency and accountability by filing this lawsuit as a last resort," said Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' resignation removes a central figure in the Bush administration's systematic abuse of power. But the damage to the Department of Justice and to the Constitution under his leadership will require decisive Congressional action to undo.

"Alberto Gonzales twisted our Constitution to justify some of this administration's most abhorrent practices: torture and abuse of detainees, unjustified wiretaps, excessive secrecy, and eliminating habeas corpus rights," said Ramona Ripston of the ACLU of Southern California. "His poor judgment and lack of independence undermined the Department of Justice and the impartiality of American law."

As White House counsel, then as Bush's hand-picked attorney general, Gonzales championed policies that eroded civil liberties protections. After September 11, he authored a memo that dismissed the Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture as "quaint" and "obsolete," urging "flexibility" to interpret international law as the Bush administration saw fit.

But the Abu Ghraib scandal and allegations of mistreatment of Guantanamo detainees revealed the dangers of this approach.

Gonzales blindly backed the Patriot Act despite serious civil liberties concerns from Republicans and Democrats alike. The FBI underreported, misused and abused the act's National Security Letter authority, which demands people's private records without prior court approval and prohibits them from speaking out about it, even when investigations are flawed.

He also politicized the Department of Justice, drove out experienced attorneys, and replaced them with cronies loyal to the White House. The recent scandal involving the dismissal of U.S. Attorneys showed his failure to demonstrate independence from the White House.

This failure hit hardest at the Civil Rights Division, charged with investigating voting rights abuses and racial profiling. Gonzales reversed the findings of a team of government voting rights lawyers and analysts that concluded a Georgia voter identification law would discriminate against minorities. And his department attempted to bury an unfavorable report on racial profiling.

The ACLU/SC is working to overturn dangerous programs Gonzales supported: Changes to the FISA law involving warrantless wiretaps, the expansion of torture and indefinite detention, and the Military Commissions Act, which eliminated habeas corpus rights. The ACLU/SC is currently suing telecommunications companies that violated customers' rights by complying with unjustified spying programs.

The ACLU/SC calls on Congress to pass legislation that will overturn his legacy of abuse of power and to restore integrity to the Department of Justice through effective oversight.

Photo: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was sworn in by President Bush in February 2005.