News & Commentary

The ACLU will be in court on Thursday, October 10, 2019 at 9:30am to argue that the federal government must obtain a warrant before accessing the private health information in New Hampshire’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP). The hearing will be held in Boston before the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

In an important decision for the rights of immigrants – and for a humane and fair immigration system – a federal judge in Rhode Island today ordered the release of a man whom the U.S. State Department is trying to extradite back to the Dominican Republic (DR) even though an immigration board found he would likely be tortured if returned there.

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.

ACLU of Rhode Island executive director Steven Brown issued the following statement today in response to last night's incident outside the Wyatt Detention Center where protesters were pepper-sprayed and one person was seriously injured by a pickup truck used by a correctional officer to try to break up protesters blocking the facility's parking lot:

Citing a “persistently disproportionate use of disciplinary action and suspensions against students of color,” the ACLU of Rhode Island has called upon Providence school officials to take immediate action to address this problem before the school session starts next month – a problem that former school superintendent Christopher Maher attributed to “racism” before he stepped down from his post earlier this year.

In an important decision enforcing a law aimed at reducing harm caused by out-of-school suspensions, an appeals committee of the Council on Elementary and Secondary Education (CESE) has upheld an R.I. Department of Education (RIDE) hearing officer’s decision that the Barrington School District improperly issued an out-of-school suspension to a middle school student. The ACLU of  RI represented the student in the appeal after the district contested the RIDE hearing officer’s decision that there was no evidence that the student’s conversation with others – prompted by a recent school shooting – was “disruptive,” a requirement for out-of-school suspension.

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.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today filed a federal lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of a 110-year-old statute that declares inmates serving life sentences at the ACI to be “dead in all respects” with respect to “all civil rights.” The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court by ACLU cooperating attorneys Sonja Deyoe and Lynette Labinger, is on behalf of two ACI inmates who are barred from pursuing legal actions against the Department of Corrections in court because of the “civil death” law. According to the lawsuit, Rhode Island may be the only state in the country still enforcing a law like this, whose origins date back to ancient English common law.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today announced the favorable settlement of a lawsuit it filed two years ago 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. Under the settlement agreement, the Town has agreed to repeal the ordinance and pay $30,000 in attorneys’ fees.