News & Commentary

From law schools across the nation, twenty professors of legal ethics today filed a “friend of the court” brief opposing efforts by former Chief Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah and the Family Court magistrates that preside over Truancy Court proceedings, to remove two National ACLU attorneys from a lawsuit challenging the legality of various Truancy Court practices. The defendants have claimed that the exercise of free speech rights by the attorneys, Robin Dahlberg and Yelena Konanova, by holding a press conference to describe their clients’ claims, constituted “reckless professional misconduct,” and that they should not be permitted to appear in the Rhode Island courts. But the law professors’ brief argues that their public comments constituted “core political speech protected by the First Amendment” and were permitted under the Rhode Island Rules of Professional Conduct for attorneys. The law professors argued that granting the defendants' motion would unconstitutionally “chill the robust debate necessary for democratic governance.”

In court papers released today, the ACLU has fired back at attempts by Family Court Chief Judge Jeremiah Jeremiah and the state’s Truancy Court magistrates to remove two National ACLU attorneys from a lawsuit challenging the legality of various Court practices, based on the attorneys’ exercise of their free speech rights. The judges have claimed that National ACLU attorneys Robin Dahlberg and Yelena Konanova engaged in “reckless professional misconduct” by publicly commenting about the lawsuit at the time it was filed, but the ACLU calls the judges’ effort “nothing more than a heavy-handed attempt to stifle the kind of criticism of governmental activities inherent in our democratic system.”

The Division of Motor Vehicles has taken a first step to address an ACLU lawsuit filed last month challenging the legality of DMV actions in sending out deficient and confusing notices of alleged decades-old traffic violations to over 1,500 residents. In response to that suit, the DMV has mailed those individuals a new notice advising them of their right to a meaningful hearing to contest the violations, and creating a mechanism to lift in the interim any license suspension that may have been imposed.

The Woonsocket Education Department has agreed to stop sending children to Rhode Island’s unlawfully operated truancy court system and to end its participation in the program completely. The agreement follows a pending class-action lawsuit filed in March by the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Rhode Island charging that the state’s truancy court system is devoid of due process protections for children in violation of state and federal law.

The Rhode Island ACLU has today filed suit in federal court to contest the Division of Motor Vehicles’ actions in advising thousands of motorists that their license and registration will be suspended due to alleged unpaid fines that may go back decades. The lawsuit the notices sent out by the DMV “facially unconstitutional,” pointing out that they give the recipients no information about the nature of the alleged offense leading to the suspension, about the penalty for the offense, or even the date that the offense purportedly took place.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Rhode Island today filed a class-action lawsuit charging that the state’s truancy court system is devoid of due process protections in violation of state and federal law.

The Rhode Island ACLU has today appealed the recent court decision upholding the constitutionality of the Town of Narragansett’s highly-publicized “orange sticker” ordinance.

The Rhode Island ACLU today expressed deep disappointment today at a decision by U.S. District Judge William Smith, upholding the constitutionality of the Town of Narragansett’s highly-publicized “orange sticker” ordinance.

The Rhode Island ACLU and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, a national organization that promotes economic justice for low-income families, today announced that a favorable settlement had been reached in their federal lawsuit filed in July against the state Department of Human Services (DHS), alleging that the state’s failure to timely process food stamp applications was resulting in the denial of “desperately needed assistance to help [applicants] feed their families,” and forcing them to “suffer hunger as a result.” The class-action lawsuit, filed by RI ACLU volunteer attorney Lynette Labinger and attorneys for the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, had sought an injunction requiring the state to process food stamp applications within the time frames established by federal law.