Sarah Wunch, a civil liberties lawyer who championed citizen protections on issues of race, gender and free speech, and helped persuade New York’s highest court to declare that men could be prosecuted for raping their wives, died on August 17 at her home in Brookline, MA. She was 75.

As deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts for almost three decades, Ms. Wunsch brought innovative challenges before the courts, aimed at safeguarding a wide range of public behavior, including panhandling for small amounts of change, tattooing, wearing certain hairstyles in school, and videotaping on-duty police activity.