News & Commentary

In an important victory for the rights of medical marijuana patients in the state, R.I. Superior Court Judge Richard Licht today issued a preliminary injunction against a Smithfield ordinance that the ACLU argued was an attempt to undermine the state’s medical marijuana law by imposing significant burdens on patients’ access to treatment in conflict with state law. The decision establishes an important precedent because a number of other municipalities have adopted, or are considering adopting, similar troubling restrictions on the rights of medical marijuana patients, although Smithfield’s appeared to be the most egregious.

It's possibly the most adorable banned book some children will never see. It's a story about love, family, and a fuzzy baby penguin whose parents have waited for her for years. Yet, And Tango Makes Three, the true story about a family of penguins at New York’s Central Park Zoo, has been among the top ten challenged books in the United States seven times (and was the most challenged book of the year for four of those times).

Five members of Governor Gina Raimondo’s Justice Reinvestment Working Group and six other groups active in criminal justice reform today issued a sharp response to Attorney General Peter Kilmartin’s recent attack on the passage of justice reinvestment legislation by the General Assembly.

By Johanna Kaiser

Hundreds of bills and countless hours later, late on September 19th the General Assembly’s Legislative Session for 2017 finally came to a close. While we usually see the end of the session come during the morning hours of June, this year, after an abrupt recess of the House due to budget disagreements between both chambers, the end of session came much later than anticipated.

Responding to President Trump’s decimation of the DACA program – the Obama program that provided legal status to young children brought to the country unlawfully by their parents – a diverse array of seventeen organizations that work with, or advocate for the rights of, immigrants in Rhode Island have sent letters to all state legislators and municipal leaders calling on them to help DACA recipients with the tools at their disposal. The organizations said in separate letters to state legislators and municipal leaders that they were “heartened by the many strong condemnations of the President’s actions” from state and local leaders, but that “the time has now come for action, not just words” to protect those victimized by Trump’s “inhumane action.” The letter to legislators noted that they had the opportunity to pass three bills pending in the General Assembly – and could do so as early as their upcoming special session this month – to provide protection to DACA students while the program remains in limbo:             *  H-6021, which would generally bar schools and other “sensitive locations” from allowing ICE agents access to their facilities without a warrant, passage of which would give DACA students “at least some limited protection from the roundups that have been happening elsewhere.”             * H–5237, which would treat DACA recipients as Rhode Island residents for purposes of qualifying for in-state tuition at the state’s public colleges and universities, allowing them to continue their education even as their legal status remains in limbo. The letter noted: “We can’t condemn President Trump for refusing to treat DACA recipients as Americans if we refuse to treat them as Rhode Islanders.”             * Passage of narrower versions of two bills, S-183 and H-5686, that would provide special driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants. The groups urged that the bills be amended to specifically authorize licenses for DACA recipients, who currently qualify for driver’s licenses but will no longer be able to do so once their status expires under Trump’s DACA repeal.

In a brief filed today, the ACLU of Rhode Island has asked the Superior Court to reject a claim made by the R.I. Department of Corrections (DOC) that inmates serving life sentences at the ACI have no legal right to sue for any violation of their civil rights.  In a related letter sent today to Governor Gina Raimondo, the ACLU of RI also asked her to intervene and call upon the DOC to refrain from taking this position in future inmate civil rights lawsuits.

Citing the unique discrimination faced by transgender and gender non-conforming students and the failure of many Rhode Island school districts to have policies in place tackling the issue, ten organizations – including the ACLU of Rhode Island, the RI State Council of Churches, GLAD, and the RI Commission for Human Rights – have formally petitioned the state Council of Elementary and Secondary Education to adopt statewide regulations that address the specific needs of this vulnerable group.