News & Commentary

Under a stipulation signed by R.I. Superior Court Judge Robert Krause and entered today, the RI Department of Corrections (DOC) will release from custody a man that ACLU of Rhode Island attorneys argued was unlawfully being held in prison despite a unanimous decision by the R.I. Parole Board to release him on supervised parole.

A habeas corpus petition filed today by ACLU of Rhode Island attorneys argues that an inmate is unlawfully being held in prison despite a decision by the R.I. Parole Board that he had demonstrated that he was qualified and ready for release on supervised parole.

The 2019 Top 10. A completely unexhaustive list of (some of) the most absurd civil liberties violations we encountered this year. 

Responding to a lawsuit filed last week by the ACLU of RI, a federal judge has, with the State's consent, entered a temporary restraining order against the Department of Human Services’ continued use of procedurally deficient notices that have demanded SNAP recipients reimburse the state for overpayments that they purportedly received years earlier. The notice, the ACLU alleged in the lawsuit, failed to provide sufficient information for recipients to determine its accuracy.

For the third time in as many years, cooperating attorneys for the ACLU of Rhode Island have filed a class-action lawsuit related to the state’s troubled UHIP computer system. This latest suit, filed in U.S. District Court by ACLU cooperating attorneys Ellen Saideman and Lynette Labinger, challenges the adequacy of notices sent by the state Department of Human Services (DHS) to some SNAP recipients, demanding that they reimburse the state for benefits overpayments that they purportedly received years earlier.

ACLU of Rhode Island cooperating attorneys have intervened in an inmate’s pro se legal action seeking to hold the state Department of Corrections (DOC) in contempt of court for violating a 47-year old consent decree that established minimum standards for the discipline and classification of inmates at the ACI.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today announced the favorable settlement of a federal lawsuit filed last year on behalf of North Smithfield resident Jason Richer, challenging the police department’s refusal to remove from its files a note falsely claiming that he was “dangerous,” “psychologically unstable,” and had numerous weapons at his house. Since the purpose of such notes is to alert police officers of possible dangers when they interact with individuals, the suit raised concerns that it “increase[d] the possibility that a police officer, believing Mr. Richer to be psychologically unstable . . . and heavily armed, may overreact” if they were called to his house, or otherwise interacted with him, for any reason.

Barrington Middle School student “E. Doe” (as he is designated in court papers) is, by his principal’s own account, a “great boy,” “respectful,” and had never been a disciplinary problem. So why, then, have the principal and the school committee spent a year and a half in a relentless battle, all at taxpayer expense, to overturn a three-day suspension against him that Doe successfully challenged as unlawful? Why would the school committee go so far as to actually sue Doe in court and (until the school committee claimed it was never their intent) seek an award of attorneys’ fees against him? And why embroil an innocent student in a court fight after three separate authorities at the R.I. Department of Education (RIDE) unanimously agreed that the suspension infringed on Doe’s rights and violated a law enacted to stem unnecessary out-of-school suspensions?

The R.I. Supreme Court has revised a court rule that favorably resolves objections that had been raised in a federal lawsuit filed last year by ACLU of Rhode Island cooperating attorneys on behalf of SouthCoast Fair Housing (SCFH), which had been prevented by the rule from providing legal help to victims of housing discrimination in RI. As a result of the revisions, SCFH will be dismissing the suit.