After the 1992 acquittal of L.A. police officers in the videotaped beating of African-American Rodney King, ACLU leaders split sharply over the possibility of a federal trial for the officers. The group eventually suspended its policy opposing double jeopardy — only to reverse itself the following year.

A New York Times editorial back then called the ACLU “torn by internal disagreement.” A Boston Globe column described the organization as “twisting itself up in knots.”…

Romero acknowledged that cases like the Trayvon Martin case sometimes prompt disagreements within the organization, and often put the group at odds with other civil rights groups.

”Good civil libertarians will differ on this issue, like a lot of our issues that divide the membership or the leadership, whether it’s campaign finance or whether it’s civil rights prosecutions after a failed trial,” he said. “The unique part of the ACLU is that we have to balance some of the concerns that we have that are longstanding deep seated values like racial justice against broader concerns about the administration of justice…”