News & Commentary

The ACLU of Rhode Island has called on the Narragansett Town Council to table a proposed discussion of an ordinance tonight that would bar members of the public from making "personal" or "slanderous" remarks, or becoming "boisterous," during the public comment portion of Council meetings.

Attorneys for the ACLU of Rhode Island and R.I. Legal Services (RILS) today filed a lawsuit against the Providence School District for hiding information about its extensive violations of the rights of English Language Learner (EL) students that led to a settlement agreement between the school system and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) more than a year ago.

Responding to an Access to Public Records Act (APRA) complaint that the ACLU of Rhode Island filed last month, the Woonsocket Police Department has released copies of its final investigations of internally-generated complaints of police misconduct that it had previously declared confidential. Last month, the ACLU had filed a formal complaint with the Attorney General when the department refused to provide the records to Dimitri Lyssikatos, a member of the Rhode Island Accountability Project. As a result of the City’s change of position, ACLU of RI cooperating attorney James Cullen is withdrawing the pending complaint.

Calling it “one of the most damaging decisions affecting the public’s right to know that has been issued, and a significant obstacle to holding police departments accountable,” the ACLU of Rhode Island has launched a two-pronged attack on a 2017 Attorney General ruling that allows police to keep secret some of its reports of police misconduct. In simultaneous appeals to the Rhode Island Supreme Court and the Attorney General, ACLU of RI cooperating attorney James Cullen is asking for a reversal of that ruling.

In a major blow to the public’s right to know, RI Superior Court Judge Melissa Long today ruled that the Pawtucket Police Department is not required, pending further court proceedings, to release reports of police officer misconduct that are generated by its Internal Affairs Division (IAD). Instead, the judge concluded that additional hearings are necessary to determine whether the records must be released under the state’s Access to Public Records Act (APRA).

The ACLU of RI today announced the settlement of a federal lawsuit against the City of Woonsocket for unlawfully withholding critically needed grant funds from Sojourner House, a social service agency that helps victims of domestic violence. Filed by ACLU of RI volunteer attorneys Matthew Oliverio and Stephen Prignano last August, the lawsuit alleged that the City withheld the funds without cause or due process, and retaliated against the agency after it petitioned other government agencies for help in resolving the dispute over the funds.

Calling the controversy “one of the most significant challenges to the public’s right to know under the state’s Access to Public Records Act” since its enactment, the ACLU of Rhode Island today filed an appeal to the R.I. Supreme Court on behalf of former House Minority Leader and Gubernatorial candidate Patricia Morgan, whose access to documents pertaining to the Attorney General’s expenditure of more than $50M in funds from the “Google settlement” has been stymied by hundreds of questionable redactions.

While almost nobody was looking, the Office of the Attorney General (AG) has abruptly made secret literally tens of thousands of government records. It happened in the context of a dispute over the release of one of the most innocuous documents one could imagine: a memo seeking the purchase of ceremonial lapel pins for members of the Attorney General’s staff. Yet this dispute’s ramifications for open government are nothing short of monumental.

The ACLU of RI and three media organizations today submitted a supplemental “friend of the court” brief in federal court in support of a lawsuit filed by the Providence Journal seeking to obtain a copy of a jury form that was prepared in a high-profile murder case.