News & Commentary

The Rhode Island ACLU has called on the Board of Governors for Higher Education to amend its financial aid policies to prevent harm to students adversely affected by the General Assembly’s adoption of a new law in June (known as “Article 22”) that treats all 17-year-olds as adults for criminal justice purposes. In a letter to the Board, the ACLU pointed out that “little attention has been paid to the direct impact that Article 22 may have on the educational rights of some students.”

The ACLU of Rhode Island today filed an “open records” lawsuit against the Providence Police Department, challenging its refusal to turn over any documents relating to police use of video camera surveillance in public places. The suit, filed in R.I. Superior Court by ACLU volunteer attorney Staci Kolb, seeks a court order requiring release of the records, and the imposition of fines and an award of attorneys fees against the Department. The lawsuit comes exactly one week after the ACLU issued a report that documented widespread non-compliance with the state’s Access to Public Records Act by government agencies, and particularly by police departments.

The R.I. Department of Corrections is holding a public hearing this Monday evening, September 10th on proposed regulations that the R.I. ACLU argues, in submitted testimony, would “allow for a regime of censorship over the news media in their efforts to interview inmates and inform the public.” The proposal under consideration is a significant revision of the DOC’s current rules governing media access.

Citing widespread violations of the state’s open records law this summer by government officials, the Rhode Island ACLU today released a report calling for strong legislative reform to address the problem. Claiming that failure to comply with the open records law “seems to have reached a level of disregard that demands a forceful response,” the report offers a series of recommendations for strengthening the law.

Citing his “inexplicable” attack on the state’s no-fault divorce laws, four organizations concerned about the rights of women have called on Governor Donald Carcieri to withdraw the brief he recently filed in the R.I. Supreme Court on same-sex marriage.

In response to the death on Tuesday of Edmar Alves Araujo, a Brazilian national who had epilepsy, while in the custody of immigration officials, the ACLU of Rhode Island has today filed an open records request with the Woonsocket Police Department to obtain copies of its policies addressing how the medical needs of individuals in the Department’s custody are handled. The ACLU has also called on the Attorney General to conduct an immediate inventory of other municipal police department policies across the state regarding the provision of medication to detainees who may have emergency medical needs.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of former Congressional candidate Rod Driver, seeking a court order and damages against the Town of Richmond and police chief Raymond Driscoll for repeatedly removing Driver’s political signs from private property during the last election. The suit, filed by ACLU volunteer attorney Richard A. Sinapi, claims that the defendants’ actions amounted to a willful violation of Driver’s First Amendment rights.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today announced the favorable settlement of its lawsuit on behalf of ACI inmate Wesley Spratt, who since 2003 had been barred by the Department of Corrections from preaching during Christian religious services at the state prison. Spratt had been preaching at ACI services for seven years before he was unilaterally stopped from doing so based on vague and generalized “security” concerns. A federal district judge initially upheld the ban, but in April the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed that ruling and ordered a trial on the merits of the case. The settlement obviates the need for a trial.

The Rhode Island ACLU said today that the release of a national report analyzing incarceration rates across the country demonstrates the need for a broader commitment to address racial profiling and related problems of racial disparities in Rhode Island’s criminal justice system. The report, “Uneven Justice: State Rates of Incarceration by Race and Ethnicity,” was released this past week by The Sentencing Project, located in Washington D.C., and examined nationwide prison statistics for 2005.