News & Commentary

With only one month remaining for RI school districts to implement comprehensive policies protecting transgender and gender non-conforming students, a recent public records inquiry by the ACLU of RI has found a handful of districts still have no policies in place or have implemented policies that miss the mark entirely.

This week is another busy one at the General Assembly with about a month of the session left. Here is a summary of some of the bills affecting civil liberties that are being considered in committee or on the floor this week, but note that more may be added to the calendars in the next day:

The ACLU of RI, joined by four media organizations, today submitted a “friend of the court” brief to contest Superior Court Associate Justice Netti Vogel’s orders last month blocking the release of the juror list, and barring members of the public from contacting the jurors, in a completed, high-profile murder case. The brief, submitted by ACLU volunteer attorneys Thomas W. Lyons and Rhiannon Huffman, is on behalf of the ACLU; the New England First Amendment Coalition; the R.I. Press Association; Nexstar Media Group, which owns WPRI-TV; and Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns WJAR-TV. The brief supports a recent lawsuit filed by the Providence Journal, which was rebuffed in its effort to obtain the jury list after Jorge DePina was convicted of the second-degree murder of his daughter. The brief submitted today in support of the Journal cites numerous state and federal court decisions for the proposition that the public and the media have a First Amendment right to both interview willing jurors after a verdict and to obtain the list of jurors. In terms of the public interest in this information, the brief cites a study of news articles involving juror interviews, which found that            “post-verdict interviews serve valuable purposes: they can help ensure jury accountability; they can help the public understand, and therefore accept, trial outcomes; they can educate the public about the realities of jury service; and they can improve the justice system’s functioning by exposing mistakes, misunderstandings, and misconduct.” The brief concludes by arguing: “The Superior Court’s orders facially violate the Providence Journal’s freedoms of the press and of speech [and] … the freedom of speech of other Rhode Islanders who may wish to speak with the jurors about the jurors’ exercise of their citizenship duties.  This prevents all of us from confirming whether the jury acted as the conscience of the community in discharging those duties and whether the jurors were confident in their verdict.  The Superior Court’s orders are also overbroad in that they place no reasonable limits as to the time, place, or manner of their prohibitions against free speech.” In addition to the free speech and free press claims, the brief claims that the Court’s orders violated due process because the judge implemented them without any notice or opportunity to be heard.                                                                                        Yesterday, Judge Vogel partially revised her April 6th order by stating that “[m]embers of the media are not precluded from contacting the jurors.” However, the order did not address at all the denial of the media list to the Providence Journal, and did not make clear whether members of the public, as opposed to the media, were allowed to contact the jurors.            A hearing on the motion to overturn the orders is scheduled for May 14th at 2 PM before Superior Court Judge Maureen Keough. Full text of the brief is available here. STATEMENTS FROM PARTICIPANTS IN THE BRIEF:

The ACLU of Rhode Island has expressed strong opposition to recently proposed regulations that would restrict the types of advertising allowed at T.F. Green Airport. 

ACLU of RI executive director Steven Brown issued the following statement in response to a directive by RI Superior Court Judge Netti C. Vogel in a recently concluded high-profile murder case involving Jorge DePina.  The directive bars members of the general public, including the news media, from contacting jurors in the case and blocks the release of the juror list:

ACLU of RI executive director Steven Brown issued the following statement today in response to Governor Raimondo’s issuance of an executive order requiring all internet service providers seeking contracts with the State to adhere to “net neutrality” principles:

There's been a lot of talk about a bill introduced in the General Assembly that would “require Internet service providers to provide digital blocking of sexual content and patently offensive material . . . and allow consumers to deactivate digital block upon payment of a twenty dollar ($20.00) fee.”  This legislation is clearly unconstitutional, inevitably ineffective, and ultimately counter-productive.

In anticipation of the national student walkout happening on March 14, 2018, the ACLU of Rhode Island has sent a letter to all school district superintendents in the State reminding them of students’ rights on the matter. Scheduled for 10am that day, the national student event is a planned protest of legislative inaction in addressing the problem of gun violence. The walkout will last for 17 minutes in honor of the 17 students killed in the Parkland, FL shooting a month earlier.

The ACLU of Rhode Island has called upon the East Greenwich Town Council to revisit an “Employee Social Media Policy” it adopted last week. In a letter to the Council, the ACLU raises concerns about the policy’s “breadth and its impact on Town employees’ First Amendment rights.” Excerpts from the ACLU’s letter appear below: