News & Commentary

In Rhode Island, being a serial graffiti artist can get you a longer prison sentence than being a serial drunk driver; stealing fruit from a farm can get you a prison sentence five times longer than if you steal the same fruit from a supermarket; a felony drug conviction from your teenage past could prevent you from volunteering at your child’s school 20 years later; and you could face years in jail for advertising your drug store for a week without having a pharmacist available during business hours.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island and the R.I. Disability Law Center (RIDLC) have asked the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Rhode Island to address local law enforcement agencies’ lack of compliance with federal laws requiring them to provide effective communication with people who are deaf and hard of hearing.

Here’s a look at the top issues – including some big victories and losses – of 2017:

Nobody likes getting pulled over by the police, but when even the police officers making the stops are doing it against their will, something is seriously wrong.

In response to recent news reports indicating that some local police departments may be implementing traffic ticket quotas among their ranks, the ACLU of Rhode Island has sent letters to all RI police chiefs reminding them of a state law, enacted in 2010, that specifically prohibits this practice.  The ACLU is also considering legal action on behalf of affected motorists.

After failing to provide court-ordered reports for August and September on the status of its efforts to ensure the timely provision of food stamp assistance to needy families, the state Department of Human Services has released a report for October, and the results, the ACLU stated today, are “jaw-dropping” and “demonstrate a continuing and unconscionable crisis affecting the state’s neediest families.” The report shows that some families waited more than a year before getting benefits to which they were entitled. Under federal law, states participating in the food stamp program, known as SNAP, are required to process food stamp applications within thirty days of the date of application, and to provide expedited food stamps to eligible households within seven days. The federally funded program helps put food on the table of Rhode Island’s poorest residents, but since the implementation of the UHIP system, those deadlines have routinely not been met.  Under a court order issued in February in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice (NCLEJ), the state was supposed to have a 96% compliance rate by August in the timely processing of SNAP applications. However, the October figures provided by DHS in a misleadingly rosy manner – since they do not account for pending overdue applications not processed that month – show the timeliness rate hovering at only about 65%, meaning that, even optimistically, one out of every three applicants has still not been getting their applications processed on time.

Saying that many questions remain unanswered, the ACLU of Rhode Island today issued a five page commentary on the Thursday shooting of Joseph Santos by Providence and RI State Police after a high speed chase, precipitated by the belief that the car had a connection to the theft of a police cruiser earlier that morning by an escaped suspect, Donald Morgan. At this point, no connection between the two incidents has been established.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today sued the RI State Police (RISP) for abusing their power by retaliating against Marissa Lacoste, 25, a Warwick resident who declined to serve as an informant for the agency in an ongoing criminal investigation. Specifically, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court by ACLU of RI cooperating attorney James W. Musgrave, RISP relied on a dubious state law to bar Lacoste from continuing to work as a cocktail waitress at Twin River Casino in Lincoln when she bowed out of assisting RISP as an informant.

In response to the state’s unmitigated failure to comply with a court order issued in February designed to ensure the timely provision of food stamp assistance to needy families, U.S. District Judge William Smith today scheduled a public court hearing on Thursday in which he anticipates he will “proceed with appointment of a special master” to oversee a plan of action that will compel the state’s compliance with that order.