News & Commentary

The Rhode Island ACLU today filed a federal lawsuit against the R.I. State Police, challenging the legality of the detention and transporting to immigration officials of fourteen people, all Guatemalans, who were stopped in a van on I-95 on July 11th after the driver changed lanes without using a turn signal. The lawsuit, filed by RI ACLU volunteer attorney V. Edward Formisano on behalf of eleven of the individuals, argues that the actions by the state police violated the state’s Racial Profiling Prevention Act, as well as the driver and passengers’ constitutional rights to be free from discrimination and from unreasonable searches and seizures.

In a 36-page report released today, the ACLU of Rhode Island charged that many police departments in the state are doing very little to address the well-documented problem of racial profiling that exists in their communities, and that changes in various law enforcement policies and practices that contribute to the problem are essential to adequately confront the issue.

In an effort to protect the rights of violent crime victims, the ACLU of Rhode Island today filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of regulations adopted by outgoing General Treasurer Paul Tavares that authorize the denial or reduction of compensation to such victims based solely on their having an unrelated drug-related criminal history or DUI conviction in their past. The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court by RI ACLU volunteer attorney Frederic Marzilli, is on behalf of the Drug and Alcohol Treatment Association of Rhode Island (DATA). In July, DATA and other organizations that service people with substance abuse problems had sharply criticized the regulations as “discriminatory and mean-spirited.”

The ACLU of Rhode Island today filed an open records lawsuit against the R.I. State Police for refusing to release to the ACLU a copy of a five-minute videotape of a controversial traffic stop of a van with fourteen Guatemalans that took place on I-95 this summer, and for also failing to turn over copies of the agency’s policies governing traffic enforcement procedures.

More than a dozen local community and civil rights organizations today sharply criticized the recent response of R.I. State Police to allegations that the police engaged in racial profiling and improperly detained and transported to immigration officials fourteen people, all Guatemalans, who were stopped in a van on July 11th after the driver failed to use a turn signal. The groups said the incident demonstrated the urgent need for passage of legislation restricting local police from enforcing federal immigration law.

Following the death this weekend of a Woonsocket resident after being “stunned” with a Taser weapon while in police custody, the Rhode Island ACLU sent a letter today calling on all police departments in the state currently using the controversial weapon to impose a moratorium on their use. R.I. ACLU executive director Steven Brown said that the death of a Rhode Islander after being stunned with the weapon was “inevitable in light of the continually-growing evidence that stun guns are not the non-lethal device that proponents purport it to be.”

Seven organizations that service people with substance abuse problems today sharply criticized as “discriminatory and mean-spirited” regulations approved earlier this week by General Treasurer Paul Tavares, allowing the state to deny compensation to victims of violent crimes based solely on their past drug-related criminal history. The groups further called on the Democratic and Republican candidates for that office, Frank Caprio and Andrew Lyon III, to commit to repealing those regulations if elected. The rule at issue provides that if a crime victim has pled nolo or been convicted of “violent felonious criminal conduct, or DUI/DWI, or the illegal manufacture, sale or delivery of a controlled substance, or possession with intent to manufacture, sell, or deliver a controlled substance … committed within the past five (5) years or subsequent to his or her injury, the administrator may reduce or deny an award to the applicant or applicants.” Drug and DUI convictions are the only non-violent offenses that have been added to trigger a possible denial of victim compensation. The DUI provision was added last year, and the drug offense language was adopted this week after a public hearing held earlier this month.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today criticized yesterday’s 4-to-2 court of appeals ruling upholding the state’s 2003 raid of the Narragansett Indian smoke shop as “a very troubling undermining of basic principles of Indian sovereignty.” Last September, the RI ACLU, together with the National ACLU and the National Congress of American Indians, had filed a “friend of the court” brief in the case, arguing that “by executing a search warrant against the Tribe, arresting Tribal officials, and confiscating tribal documents and other property,” the state violated the Tribe’s “sovereign authority over its territory.”

The ACLU of Rhode Island has filed a “friend of the court” brief addressing the issue whether the civil commitment hearing of convicted sex offender Todd McElroy should be public. In this highly publicized case, the Governor and Attorney General took steps to invoke the mental health civil commitment process just weeks before McElroy’s 17-year prison sentence was scheduled to end. The ACLU and a number of medical groups have been very critical of the state’s efforts in that regard.