News & Commentary

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.

The Trump administration today announced the termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program. The DACA program has served as a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who were brought to this country as children and know the United States as home. The following is a statement from Steven Brown, ACLU of RI executive director, reacting to the White House announcement rescinding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program:

The ACLU of Rhode Island today filed a federal lawsuit against the Town of Bristol over the police department’s refusal to return to its owners a firearm that the agency seized more than a year ago. The suit, filed by ACLU of RI cooperating attorneys Thomas Lyons and Rhiannon Huffman, is on behalf of two parents who are Bristol residents and inherited their son’s firearm collection after he tragically took his own life.  The suit argues that the Bristol Police Department violated the parents’ constitutional rights by refusing to return the firearm to them.

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 a case that led to a groundbreaking court decision limiting the power of immigration officials, the ACLU today announced the settlement of a lawsuit it filed in 2012 on behalf of Providence resident and United States citizen Ada Morales, who was twice unlawfully held at the ACI because Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials erroneously deemed her to be a deportable “alien.”

In a case with important ramifications for the public’s ability to monitor police misbehavior, the ACLU of Rhode Island sued the Pawtucket Police Department today for failing to release certain reports of alleged police officer misconduct generated by its Internal Affairs Division (IAD). The suit argues that this refusal to release the records is in clear violation of the state’s Access to Public Records Act (APRA). 

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.

On the heels of the tragic police shooting and subsequent death of an innocent woman in Minneapolis, the ACLU of RI has sent letters to the police chiefs of both Newport and Providence urging them to revise and strengthen their existing body camera policies so that they promote full transparency in policing.