News & Commentary

The ACLU of Rhode Island today announced the dismissal of charges against a group of Narragansett residents, landlords and businesses for violating a Town ordinance that bars more than four unrelated people from living together.  In a 23-page decision issued yesterday, Municipal Court Judge John DeCubellis, Jr. agreed that the ordinance violated plaintiffs’ due process and equal protection rights – as argued earlier this year by ACLU of RI cooperating attorney H. Jefferson Melish in a brief seeking dismissal of the charges.  The judge noted that in 1994, the R.I. Superior Court struck down as unconstitutional a nearly identical Narragansett ordinance and that efforts by the Town to distinguish it were unavailing.

In an important preliminary victory for First Amendment rights, U.S. District Court Chief Judge William Smith this morning issued a temporary restraining order against enforcement of the City of Cranston’s anti-panhandling ordinance. The order will remain in effect pending a future trial on the ACLU of Rhode Island’s challenge to the controversial ordinance. In issuing the order, the judge found that the ACLU had demonstrated an ultimate likelihood of success in its legal challenge.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today sued the City of Cranston over its latest anti-panhandling ordinance.  The suit, filed in federal court by ACLU of RI volunteer attorney Lynette Labinger, argues that the ordinance, enacted earlier this year by a 5-4 vote of the City Council, violates the First Amendment right of individuals to solicit donations and distribute literature on Cranston roadways.

In response to the reported arrest by ICE agents of an undocumented immigrant outside a Providence courthouse, ACLU of RI executive director Steven Brown today issued the following statement:

The ACLU of Rhode Island today filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Cranston, challenging its blatantly selective enforcement of an ordinance that bars the placement of commercial advertisements on city property. The suit was filed by ACLU volunteer attorney Richard A. Sinapi on behalf of attorney Stephen Hunter, who was threatened with fines if he did not take down signs advertising his business that he had posted at various intersections throughout the city – even though there were dozens of other advertising signs posted at the same locations and many hundreds more citywide, which were, and have been, left untouched and not cited.

ACLU of RI executive director Steven Brown issued the following statement addressing yesterday’s actions by Cranston police in ticketing individuals engaged in peaceful protest.

Will Warwick take the high road that municipalities like Providence and Newport have done, and reject attempts to enact or enforce punitive anti-panhandling ordinances that seek to "solve" poverty by hiding it from public view? Or will they take the low road, like Cranston, which, after being successfully sued by the ACLU over an ordinance banning "solicitation on roadways," decided to pass a cosmetically revised ordinance last month that will once again be challenged?

Lately, we’ve gotten a surge of requests for our Know Your Rights information on anti-Muslim discrimination, police practices, and protests and demonstrations.  Given the recent deportation raids, Trump’s “border wall” and “Muslim ban” executive orders, and the nationwide protests that have sprung up in response, we’re not surprised.  Here are quick links to some Know Your Rights pamphlets – to keep you informed and help your efforts to educate others. Feel free to share these widely.

“The action of the local authorities in compelling the flag salute and pledge transcends constitutional limitations on their power, and invades the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to reserve from all official control.”