News & Commentary

A legal claim for damages has been sent today to the City of Pawtucket over a School Resource Officer’s (SRO) gratuitous and unlawful handcuffing and arrest of a 13-year-old African-American middle school honors student. The damages claim was submitted by ACLU of Rhode Island cooperating attorney Shannah Kurland as a required legal prerequisite to the filing of a lawsuit on behalf of the student, Tre’sur Johnson.

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

The R.I. Department of Human Services illegally used an employee’s non-conviction criminal history to terminate her employment, an ACLU of Rhode Island cooperating attorney has claimed in a charge of discrimination filed with the R.I. Commission for Human Rights on behalf of Coventry resident Cheryl Robbio.

The American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project and the ACLU of Rhode Island have today filed a “friend of the court” brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston in support of a lower court ruling barring the extradition of a man whom the U.S. State Department is trying to return to the Dominican Republic (DR) even though an immigration appeals board found he would likely be tortured if returned there.

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.

The ACLU has filed a “friend of the court” brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston in support of a legal challenge brought by the cities of Providence and Central Falls to a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) policy conditioning the receipt of federal law enforcement funds on municipal collaboration with immigration officials.

Disability Rights Rhode Island (DRRI, formerly the R.I. Disability Law Center) and attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project (ACLU) and its Rhode Island Affiliate (ACLU-RI), today filed a federal class action lawsuit against the R.I. Department of Corrections (RIDOC) alleging multiple constitutional violations of the rights of prisoners with serious and persistent mental illness (SPMI).

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.